{"id":23242,"date":"2025-03-07T12:58:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/as-doj-looks-into-tina-peters-prosecution-colorado-officials-field-pleas-from-her-supporters\/"},"modified":"2025-03-07T19:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:58:22","slug":"as-doj-looks-into-tina-peters-prosecution-colorado-officials-field-pleas-from-her-supporters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/as-doj-looks-into-tina-peters-prosecution-colorado-officials-field-pleas-from-her-supporters\/","title":{"rendered":"As DOJ looks into Tina Peters\u2019 prosecution, Colorado officials field pleas from her supporters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters smiles at supporters sitting behind her during her sentencing for her election interference case at the Mesa County District Court Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Grand Junction, Colo. (Larry robinson\/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP)<\/span>(Larry robinson\/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Supporters of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters are trying to persuade the governor and state lawmakers to do something about her long prison sentence, on the heels of news that the U.S. Justice Department plans to review her case<\/a> for \u201cabuses of the criminal justice process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October Peters was sentenced to nine years on charges stemming from her efforts to help a man gain unauthorized access to Mesa County\u2019s Dominion voting machines in 2021. She is currently being held in the Larimer County jail while she appeals her conviction.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Jenny Willford of Northglenn said she\u2019s received about 50 emails so far this week from Peters\u2019 supporters, mostly people from Texas,<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are all talking about how Tina Peters has been victimized and Colorado\u2019s weaponizing our justice system to keep her in jail, that Tina did not break the law,\u201d said Willford.<\/p>\n

The emails are going to every member of the general assembly as well as Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fascinating to me that we\u2019ve received this many emails asking us to free Tina Peters,\u201d Willford told CPR News. \u201cThat is not our position or something that we even have the authority to do as a legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n

While state lawmakers don\u2019t have power to overturn a state conviction, Gov. Polis does have that authority. His office said he has received 400 emails and calls since January in favor of a pardon for Peters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe individual has not applied to be considered through that process,\u201d spokesman Eric Maruyama wrote in response to CPR\u2019s questions. He added that the Governor would only consider a clemency application on its own merits \u201cregardless of bullying and threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis\u2019 office said the \u2018bullying and threats\u2019 reference was in response to a 9News story<\/a> which said some Republican leaders in Colorado are calling on the Trump administration to withhold federal funding to the state to force a pardon from Polis.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuid pro quo or blackmail is not the way our system of laws work,\u201d Maruyama stated. \u201cColoradans are federal taxpayers. It\u2019s repugnant to demand to withhold taxpayer money in exchange for a political favor.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Attorney General Phil Weiser said the office cannot comment on this pending matter at this time, but will have a court filing soon on Peters\u2019 federal habeas petition, in which she\u2019s asking to be released while her case is on appeal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Republican state Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs, who is also a candidate for governor, said he\u2019s been closely involved in conversations with Peters and others about her situation and pushing for her release. He said he thinks Colorado is already on track to lose federal funding, not because of Peters, but because of the state\u2019s opposition to the Trump administration on other issues that he thinks are anti-parent and anti-child, like trans rights.<\/p>\n

Bottoms said he\u2019s glad Peters\u2019 case is getting more attention because he believes her conviction and what\u2019s happened to her since are unjust.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe should have got probation, but she gets nine years and she\u2019s not allowed to get out on appeal. This stuff does not happen except in a Venezuela-type government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As supporters rally to aid Peters, others see any federal intervention as a miscarriage of justice<\/div>\n

Peters continues to argue she did nothing wrong when she helped an unauthorized person use someone else\u2019s identity to access her office\u2019s election equipment and attend a secure software update. And she remains a cause celeb for those on the right who believe election equipment makers conspired with Democrats to sway elections \u2014 claims that have never been upheld in any court.<\/p>\n

Sherronna Bishop, a prominent conservative activist who participated in the planning behind efforts to copy Mesa County\u2019s election equipment hard drives, is working with Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a prominent election denier, and his Lindell Offense Fund to raise money for Peters\u2019 legal fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that have stepped up and want to help and want to see this be made right,\u201d said Bishop. \u201cWe believe this is political. This is a political hit job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubinstein, a Republican, said his office\u2019s prosecution was not politically motivated, noting that the judicial district sits in a conservative part of the state.<\/p>\n

For Republican Rep. Matt Soper of Delta, who represents most of Mesa County at the capitol, the handling of Peters\u2019 case is a state\u2019s rights issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see this as being a very classic constitutional analysis of stay in your lane,\u201d he said of the Justice Department interest.<\/p>\n

Soper noted he has constituents on both sides of the issue, but \u201cregardless of how someone feels about Tina Peters\u2019 conviction, she was convicted under Colorado state law by a jury of her peers from Mesa County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soper, who holds a law degree, said from his legal analysis, he doesn\u2019t see what leverage the DOJ has over Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the leverage at the end of the day is going to be threatening to pull back federal funds or threatening to remove federal jobs from Colorado or threatening economic sanctions on Colorado, I mean, to me that\u2019s quite disturbing actually,\u201d he said. \u201cIt sort of feels like justice can be purchased at the end of the day, and that\u2019s not the American system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DOJ filing said Peters received an \u201cexceptionally lengthy sentence imposed relative to the conduct at issue\u201d and urged the federal judge to consider Peters\u2019 request to be released as her case is appealed. The Justice Department wrote that it plans to evaluate whether the state prosecution was \u201coriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing actual justice or legitimate governmental objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian Farrell, associate professor of law at the University of Denver described the federal interest in Peters\u2019 case as an unprecedented situation; he said it\u2019s shocking a federal department would consider intervening in a state conviction, \u201cbut when you think about it for even a few seconds, it\u2019s not surprising. And so that\u2019s I guess the world we live in these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farell said he doesn\u2019t find Peters\u2019 claim that her constitutional rights are being violated \u201cremotely credible.\u201d Her being jailed during the appeal is routine, he said, and he noted her nine-year prison sentence is half the maximum sentence she could have received.<\/p>\n

A recent filing by Peters\u2019 lawyers, however, could lay the groundwork for a federal judge to look over her case, and Farrell worries that could lead to her release.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we can any longer assume that federal judges will, in all cases, simply apply the law,\u201d he said. \u201cOne hopes that they will.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018They are all talking about how Tina Peters has been victimized\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,266,28,1025,299],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-law-and-justice","tag-national-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23242"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}