Colorado election denier Tina Peters sentenced to home detention and community service for obstruction conviction
Tina Peters reacts to early election returns during a primary night watch party at the Wide Open Saloon on June 28
By Andi Babineau and Jeremy Harlan, CNN
Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, and the state’s most prominent 2020 election denier — was sentenced by a judge Monday to home detention and community service after she was found guilty last month of obstructing a government operation.
Peters was sentenced to four months of home detention with an ankle monitor and will be required to complete 120 hours of community service within one year. She was also ordered to pay a $750 fine.
The judge, however, stayed the sentence shortly after handing it down because Peters’ attorney said he would be filing an appeal.
Harvey Steinberg, Peters’ attorney, told CNN that he “was surprised that the DA would seek a jail sentence after she was acquitted of the most serious charge.”
As CNN previously reported, Peters was arrested by Grand Junction police in February 2022 at a local business while state investigators attempted to execute a search warrant. She did not cooperate with investigators as they tried to seize an iPad sought in the search warrant, according to an affidavit from the Grand Junction Police Department.
Peters stepped in between an officer and a patron who allegedly blocked investigators from accessing the table, according to the affidavit. When officers tried to move her to the side, she “actively” resisted, the affidavit said.
While a jury convicted Peters on a misdemeanor obstruction of a government operation charge, the panel had acquitted her of obstructing a peace officer.
The split verdicts were delivered less than a year after Peters lost the GOP primary for secretary of state to former Jefferson County clerk Pam Anderson — then claimed fraud, again with no evidence. Peters was one of several vocal election conspiracy theorists to fail in their bids for higher office in 2022.
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CNN’s Gregory Krieg contributed to this report.
