Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who was indicted last year in a breach of Mesa County’s election system, was sentenced Monday to home detention and community service for a misdemeanor obstruction conviction in a separate case.
Peters was sentenced to four months of home detention and 120 hours of community service with an ankle monitor for her attempts to prevent authorities from seizing an iPad she is alleged to have used to record a video of a court hearing, according to The Associated Press. She was also ordered to pay a $750 fine, NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver reported.
"We were happy and relieved that the judge did not grant the district attorney’s request for a jail sentence," Harvey Steinberg, Peters’ attorney, told NBC News. The sentence was put on hold while Peters appeals it, The Daily Sentinel newspaper of Grand Junction reported.
Peters, a supporter of former President Donald Trump who pushed baseless claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, had faced up to six months in jail after she was convicted last month of obstructing government operations.
Peters was charged with obstruction after she was briefly detained at a cafe in February last year. Investigators from the district attorney’s office showed up to the cafe with a warrant to seize Peters’ iPad, which she is accused of using for an unauthorized recording of a court hearing for Belinda Knisley, her former subordinate at the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.
Peters “actively” resisted officers, and she was “placed in handcuffs for obstructing officers,” Grand Junction police alleged in an affidavit.
Separately, Peters, who ran unsuccessfully for Colorado secretary of state last year, was indicted last year on charges of election tampering and official misconduct in connection with a security breach of Mesa County’s voting system. She is accused of having allowed unauthorized people to break into her county’s election system in search of evidence supporting baseless election fraud theories espoused by former President Donald Trump.
Peters has denied wrongdoing in that case. A trial is scheduled for October, the AP reported.
Following allegations related to the breach, a judge barred Peters from overseeing both the 2021 and last year’s midterm elections in Mesa County, which Trump won handily in 2020.
