Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk, has been convicted on seven felonies

 

Following a lengthy criminal trial, twelve Mesa County jurors found Tina Peters guilty of four felonies on Monday, marking yet another conviction linked to post-2020 election conspiracy theories.

Peters faced ten criminal charges for her role in assisting a man obtain unauthorised access to voting equipment during a secure software update in May 2021. People attempting to undermine the validity of the election system later shared the passwords and hard drive copies for the county's voting machine online.

The jury debated for around four and a half hours Monday afternoon before making their judgement, which was announced to a packed courtroom shortly after 5 p.m.

Peters was convicted on three counts of attempting to influence a public official and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. She was also found guilty of first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failure to comply with a Secretary of State order, all of which are misdemeanours.

The jury found Peters not guilty on three counts: criminal impersonation, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and identity theft. 

So, how did we get here?

The investigation into Peters' conduct began almost exactly three years ago, when photos obtained during a secure upgrade, including machine passwords, were leaked online. At the same time, a duplicate of Mesa County's hard drive was shown and debated at a "cyber symposium" held by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow who has been at the centre of false accusations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

According to investigations conducted by the 21st Judicial District in Mesa County and the Colorado Secretary of State's office, Peters began meeting with people concerned about election integrity in April 2021, prompted by the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and the results of the spring 2021 Grand Junction municipal election.

Peters stated that the win of a number of more moderate candidates led her to assume that something was wrong with the county's Dominion Voting System devices.

Some of the facts in this case have never been contested. Peters admits that in May 2021, she used the identity of a Fruita man named Gerald Wood to grant Conan Hayes, a self-described data expert from California, access to county voting equipment, both to copy its hard drive and, a few days later, to attend a secure software update. Hayes is a retired surfer with connections to Lindell and his campaign to spread misinformation about the country's election system.

"This was a simple case centred around the use of deceit to commit a fraud," prosecutor Robert Shapiro told the jury during his closing statements on Monday.

"It's not about computers, it's not about election records, it's about using deceit to trick and manipulate others, specifically public servants who were simply trying to do their job."

He said that Peters broke a very sensitive, safe, and secret process for updating voting machine software.

 

What did the prosecution and defence argue during the Tina Peters trial?

The prosecution also spent a significant amount of time attempting to demonstrate that Peters was aware she had done something improper based on her behaviour after the security violation became public. Two former employees said Peters told them, "I'm f—d." One person stated that Peters informed her she was "going to jail." Peters also allegedly instructed staff involved in the operation to obtain burner phones and not reveal anything.


"The defendant was a fox guarding the henhouse." "It was her responsibility to protect the election equipment, and she turned it on and used her power to her own advantage," said prosecutor Janet Drake.

Peters' defence team has portrayed her as a clerk who broke no regulations by duplicating her equipment's hard drives. They claim that all she did was within her power to preserve election records.

"There's also no doubt about what was going to happen when the state stepped in to complete the trusted build. "They were going to erase all of the records," said defence counsel John Case in his closing statement.

The Secretary of State's office and Dominion Voting Systems disagree that the files altered during the secure update are 'election records' under Colorado law. They also suggest there are alternative ways to collaborate with the state to save any data on the computers before the update.

The nine-day trial was fraught with questions over relevance and admissibility, which frequently resulted in lengthy delays as counsel debated outside the presence of the jury whether the trial could go into national conspiracies involving Dominion Voting Systems and election outcomes. The defence team also claimed, without evidence, that Hayes was a government informant, or that Peters felt he was an informant whose identity should be safeguarded.

In conclusion, Case again crossed those borders, prompting multiple protests from prosecutors.
He questioned jurors about why they were not seen the leaked film and why Hayes was not subpoenaed for the trial.

"So why didn't they produce him? He's the key to the entire case, but they didn't have the courage to summon him as a witness," Case explained. "They knew what he would say."

Throughout the trial, the defence spent a significant amount of time attempting to prove that Wood was aware of the plot to allow Hayes to use his ID badge and identity. They emphasised messages from talks on the encrypted software Signal, in which Wood talked with Peters and Sherronna Bishop, a local conservative activist who assisted in organising the hard drive copying operation.

"He knew all along," Case of Wood stated in his final remarks. "That's why he's on this text chat. So, what happened when he was testifying? I came up and exhibited, and he looked like he'd been hit by a four-by-four."

Wood claimed he had no recollection of being a member of the "tech team" text message exchange, but admitted it included his cell phone number and username.

  
Prosecutors encouraged the jury not to believe Bishop's evidence, pointing out that the validity of the text chain had not been confirmed by anybody else, and investigators had never discovered it on any of the devices confiscated from her, Peters, or Wood.

  

"If you believe Sherronna Bishop, then we submit that you'll probably find Jerry Wood consented," Shapiro told the jurors.

The trial was keenly observed because of its connections to larger election schemes. Brad Barker lives in Mesa County and volunteers as an election judge on a regular basis. He watched the case closely and expressed surprise that she was not found guilty on all charges, but he was delighted nonetheless.

"The jury did a good job going through the counts, and I'm satisfied with the verdict," Barker said, adding that he feels more secure helping out at the polls in November.

"Hopefully, both sides in this will be able to accept the ruling without causing too much trouble. As an election judge, that might make things difficult if it continues to be a problem in Mesa County, which I don't want," Barker said in the hallway following the ruling.

The association representing Colorado's clerks expressed delight with the judgement.

"Clerks throughout the state are relieved to see justice served today. We take our job as protectors of the greatest electoral process in the country very seriously, and we are pleased to see the justice system holding those who would harm our elections accountable," said the association's executive director, Matt Crane, in a statement.