Tina Peters, former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk, found guilty on seven counts • Nebraska Examiner

A Mesa County jury found Tina Peters guilty Monday on seven of 10 criminal charges related to a security breach that occurred in the spring of 2021 in the elections office she oversaw as the Mesa County clerk and recorder.

The jury returned the verdict just hours after closing arguments.

Peters was found guilty on three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one felony count of criminal impersonation, one misdemeanor count of official misconduct, one misdemeanor count of violation of duty in elections, and one misdemeanor count of failure to comply with the secretary of state. She was acquitted on two felony counts of criminal impersonation and one felony count of identity theft.

“Tina Peters willfully compromised her own election equipment trying to prove Trump’s Big Lie,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement after the verdict was announced in the Mesa County District Court of Judge Matthew Barrett. “She has been found guilty by a jury of her peers and will now face the consequences of her actions. Today’s verdict sends a clear message: we will not tolerate any effort to threaten the security of our gold standard elections. I am proud that justice for Colorado voters has been served today.”

Griswold’s office opened an investigation into Peters in August 2021 after it learned that sensitive Mesa County election system data had been posted online. In 2022, a Mesa County grand jury charged Peters for her role in a scheme to allow an unauthorized person to enter Mesa County’s elections department to make copies of election system software and capture images of passwords and other sensitive data in May 2021, during the time of an election equipment software update, also known as a trusted build.

The scheme represented an instance in which election deniers aligned with former President Donald Trump found a willing county clerk in Colorado to deceive other public servants in an attempt to prove election equipment in Mesa County was somehow corruptible.

Peters declined to comment after the verdict and told reporters she would do so at a later time.

In his closing statements following the eight-day trial, the prosecution’s Robert Shapiro, first assistant Colorado attorney general for special prosecutions, said Peters opened up her office and herself to outside people to allow a security breach of Mesa County’s election equipment.

The case involves “layers upon layers of deceit,” with a lot of people working with Peters to accomplish the fraud, Shapiro said.

One of those people was Kurt Olsen, an associate of MyPillow CEO and prominent Trump ally Mike Lindell, an election denier. Shapiro reminded jurors that Peters told Olsen that she was “at his disposal” and was there to help in their endeavors.

Others, according to prosecutors, included Ohio mathematician Douglas Frank, an election conspiracy theorist on Lindell’s payroll; Conan Hayes, a former professional surfer-turned conspiracy theorist from California; and Sherronna Bishop, a friend of Peters who did not reside in or work for Mesa County yet had an integral role in orchestrating a scheme to allow Hayes into the secure elections area where the breach occurred.

Shapiro said Peters duped a Dominion Voting Systems employee and secretary of state staff members when she allowed an unauthorized person — Hayes — to be part of the trusted build on May 25 and 26, 2021, under the pretense that he was a Mesa County employee.

According to prosecutors, Hayes entered the elections room on May 23, when offices were closed and cameras had been turned off, to make a copy of the software of the elections system hard drive. On May 25, he returned to the room for the trusted build attended by Peters, plus representatives from the secretary of state and Dominion Voting Systems.

Surveillance cameras had previously been shut off on May 17, despite a longtime policy in Mesa County to leave cameras on 24/7.

Contradicting testimonies

Shapiro described how Peters hired Gerald Wood, a Fruita resident, for the purpose of using his identity to obtain security clearance for Hayes so he could enter secure election areas posing as Wood. Wood went through a background check and received a security access badge only to be asked by one of Peters’ staff members to give it back a few days later.

During the trial and closing statements, defense attorneys tried to paint Wood as a willing participant in the scheme.

Shapiro said the only witness who testified that Wood was in on the plan was Bishop, who according to prosecutors helped orchestrate the breach. Bishop is considered by prosecutors an unindicted co-conspirator.

Bishop’s testimony contradicted Wood’s sworn statements that he knew nothing of the plan and that he did not grant permission to give his identity to a third party. Shapiro said Bishop was not a credible witness.

“No other witness supported Sherronna Bishop’s account,” Shapiro said.

Hayes was an outside imposter who used Wood’s identity to copy sensitive data, Shapiro said.

Other evidence offered by the prosecution included Peters telling staff members to purchase disposable phones with cash and to use the encrypted texting platform Signal, as well as a non-county email address.

Shapiro reminded jurors how Bishop, while attending a “cyber security” symposium in South Dakota in August 2021, around the time that Griswold launched her investigation into the elections security breach, called Peters’ then-Chief Deputy Belinda Knisley in Grand Junction asking her to go to the elections office and remove the election computer server. Knisley refused.

When Peters learned election system data and passwords had been posted to an online conspiracy site, she repeatedly told Knisley “I’m (expletive deleted) I’m going to jail,” Shapiro said.

“Does that sound like someone who is doing right, doing something noble?” Shapiro said to the jurors.

Questions around Hayes

Defense attorney John Case began his closing statement with an exhibit — a photo of Peters with her son, who died in 2017 as the result of an air show accident while he was serving with the U.S. Navy SEALs.

“When Tina Peters’ son died she was forced to find a purpose in life,” and she ran for Mesa County clerk and recorder, Case said.

Case, as did all the defense attorneys throughout the trial, consistently referred to Peters as “Clerk Peters” — though her tenure ended at the beginning of 2023.

Shapiro objected several times during Case’s closing statements, saying either he was misstating facts or was bringing up topics that had not been admitted as evidence.

Case told jurors that Bishop wanted to conceal Hayes’ identity and that one decision to protect one person led the government to charge Peters with 10 crimes. The defense claimed that Peters believed Hayes was a confidential government agent.

At one point during his statements, Case likened the access badge to a hotel key card that you would share with a husband, wife or friend.

Case said Peters became a target of the government after the video she took during the trusted build appeared on the internet. He said she did not consent to its release online and that it’s not a crime to post videos on the internet.

“We still value free speech, unless you’re a target of the government,” Case said. “Then your speech has no value.”

Case questioned why Hayes was not asked to testify.

“He’s key to the whole case,” he said. “They didn’t have the guts to call him as a witness.”

In her rebuttal to Case’s closing arguments, Deputy Attorney General Janet Drake explained why they hadn’t heard from Hayes.

“It’s Tina Peters’ trial,” she said. “We’re here because she deceived a public servant to sneak a person into the office.”

Drake told jurors there is a lot of evidence that Peters had criminal intent in her actions, starting with an April 23, 2021, meeting with out-of-state co-conspirators, surveillance cameras being turned off on May 17 of that year, the use of disposable phones, and the use of the encrypted Signal platform and non-county emails. Drake also reiterated how after learning an investigation had been launched, Peters “dropped the F-bomb,” and said many times that she was “going to jail.”

The defense argued Peters acted merely to protect election records, but Drake said her actions were a “deep dive” into disclosing publicly confidential information. It was all “so she could be the hero, to be on a stage at the symposium and get famous because of this breach,” Drake said.

“(Tina Peters) was in charge of protecting election integrity and she didn’t do it,” Drake said.

Peters was the “fox guarding the henhouse,” she said.

Attorney general: ‘A warning’

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said in a statement, “Clerks across the state are pleased to see justice done today. We take seriously our role as guardians of the best election process in the nation and are grateful to see the justice system hold those who would harm our elections accountable.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser also weighed in on Monday’s verdict: “I want to thank the prosecutors from my team who worked side-by-side with Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein to bring justice in this case. They have worked for several years under difficult circumstances — including abhorrent threats. I am grateful for their commitment to the rule of law and sense of duty.”

Weiser continued, “Today’s verdict is a warning to others that they will face serious consequences if they attempt to illegally tamper with our voting processes or election systems. I want to be clear — our elections are safe and fair. In fact, Colorado’s election system is the gold standard of the nation. And make no mistake: my office will continue to protect it.”

Sentencing for Peters has been set for Oct. 3.

This article first appeared in the Colorado Newsline, a sister site of the Nebraska Examiner in the States Newsroom network.