Global Courant 2023-04-11 19:29:29
Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who was indicted last year for violating her district’s election system, was sentenced Monday to house arrest and community service for felony obstruction conviction in a separate case.
Peters has been sentenced to four months of house arrest and 120 hours of community service with an ankle bracelet for trying to prevent authorities from seizing an iPad she allegedly used to film a video of a court hearing, the court said. Associated Press. She was also ordered to pay a $750 fine, a local NBC affiliate reported.
“We were pleased and relieved that the judge did not grant the district attorney’s request for a prison sentence,” Harvey Steinberg, Peters’ attorney, told NBC News. The verdict was stayed while Peters appealed, That reports the Daily Sentinel.
Peters, a supporter of former President Donald Trump who raised unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, had been jailed for up to six months after being convicted last month of obstructing government operations.
Peters was charged with obstruction after being briefly detained in a cafe in February last year. Investigators from the district attorney’s office came to the cafe with a warrant to seize Peters’ iPad, which she allegedly used for an unauthorized recording of a court hearing for Belinda Knisley, her former subordinate at the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.
Peters reportedly “actively” resisted officers and was “put in handcuffs to interfere with officers,” the Grand Junction Police Department claimed in a statement. declaration.
Separately, Peters, who ran unsuccessfully for Colorado Secretary of State last year, was also indicted last year for voter fraud and official misconduct in connection with a security breach of Mesa County’s voting system. She is accused of allowing unauthorized persons to break into her county’s election system in search of evidence to support baseless theories of vote-rigging 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 banned Peters from overseeing both the 2021 and last year’s Mesa County midterm elections, which Trump handily won in 2020.
Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters has been sentenced to house arrest
Next Big Thing in Public Knowledg
