'You're a charlatan': Election-denying Colorado clerk gets 9 years in machine tampering

A former Republican county clerk who promoted election conspiracy theories and tampered with voting machines in Colorado was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison during a hearing in which the judge in the case called her a "charlatan."

Tina Peters, who denies that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election over Donald Trump, was found guilty in August of seven counts. They included attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, failure to comply with an order from the Secretary of State and violation of duty. Three were felonies and four were misdemeanors.

Peters, 68, was indicted in March 2022 after prosecutors said she improperly permitted someone to copy access passwords and other files from a secure voting system and post them online, exposing the machines to hackers.

The county’s machines had to be replaced because data, which included passwords for the machines, were all posted on the internet. Peters claimed that she did not know the information was being made public.

"This community has suffered greatly from the dishonesty, lack of transparency and refusal of Ms. Peters to take accountability," Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubinstein told USA TODAY in August.

Judge to Tina Peters: ‘You are a charlatan’

As she was being sentenced to prison, Peters did not apologize, according to reports from local TV station ABC 7.

“I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” she said during the hearing in Denver.

Judge Matthew Barrett called Peters one of the most defiant defendants he has ever seen.

“You are no hero. You abused your position – and you’re a charlatan who used, and is still using your prior position, to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again,” Barrett said. “Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are serious. I’m convinced you’d do it all over again if you could.”

Connections with other conservative election deniers

According to prosecutors, Peters stole a Mesa County employee’s security badge to help a man MyPillow founder Mike Lindell was acquainted with gain access to the county's voter systems to help Lindell’s false conspiracies about the validity of the 2020 election results.

One year before her indictment, Peters appeared in South Dakota at Lindell’s "bizarre election security symposium," where files from the Mesa County election system were displayed onscreen, the Detroit Free-Press, part of the USA TODAY Network previously reported.

Prosecutor Janet Drake argued that Peters was “fixated on a desire to be a hero and to impress Lindell,” reporting from KRAK-TV said.

Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Election-denying Colorado clerk gets 9 years in machine tampering