Denver — A Colorado appeals court ruled Thursday that a former county clerk convicted in a scheme that tried to find evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election should be reinstated.
Tina Peters is serving a nine-year prison sentence after being… He was convicted of state crimes She was accused of hacking an outside computer expert into making a copy of her county’s election computer system during a software update in 2021. A photo and video of the secret voting system passwords were later posted on social media and a conservative website.
Colorado Court of Appeals judges upheld her conviction, but said the judge should not have taken into account Peters’ continued promotion of election fraud conspiracies when he sentenced her in 2024. The court remanded Peters’ case to a lower court for the judge to issue a new sentence.
Calls for Peters’ release have become a cause célèbre in the United States Election conspiracy movement. President Donald Trump has unsuccessfully sought a pardon for Peters and has pressured Colorado to release her.
Peters was unapologetic When she was sentenced By Judge Matthew Barrett she insisted she had tried to expose what she believed to be fraud for the public good. He ripped into her and called her a “charlatan” who used her position to “trade snake oil.”
Peters was a former employee of Mesa County, in far western Colorado, and was convicted by jurors in the Republican stronghold that supported Trump.
Trump threatened to take “harsh measures” against Colorado unless the state released it. In February, Trump said Colorado was “bearing a heavy price” for refusing to release her.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, accused the Trump administration of waging a “retaliation campaign” by… Stifle money and the termination of federal programs due to the state’s refusal to release Peters.
The appeals court found that the ruling punished Peters for asserting fraud in the 2020 election.
“For these reasons, we conclude that the court clearly erred in imposing the sentence at least in part based on Peters’ protected speech,” the court said in its ruling Thursday.
In response to the ruling, Weiser said the original sentence was “fair and appropriate.”
“No matter what happens with her sentence, Tina Peters will always be a convicted felon who violated her duty as a Mesa County employee, endangered the lives of others, and threatened our democracy. Nothing will remove this stain,” Weiser said in a statement.
Weiser, a Democrat running for governor, noted that the court affirmed that Trump’s attempt to pardon Peters was “meaningless” because presidential pardons do not extend to state crimes.
The Justice Department has included itself in Peters’ bid for release while the state’s appeal is being considered. Federal Bureau of Prisons I tried to move Peters To federal prison. After both attempts failed, Trump announced in December Sorry For Peters, it was symbolic because Colorado says it doesn’t apply to its convictions in the state.
But in January, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said he was considering granting clemency to Peters, calling her sentence “unusual and harsh” for a nonviolent first-time offender.
Peters was found guilty of three counts of attempting to influence a public employee and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, breach of duty, and failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State.
Peters’ lawyers did not deny that she used the security badge of a local man she pretended to hire to let his accomplice in MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell To make a copy of the Dominion Voting Systems election computer server during its annual software update in 2021.
But they said it only wanted to preserve election data and see if any outside party accessed the system while the votes were being counted. They said she did not want to release the information.