Appeals court tosses contempt finding against Tina Peters
Finds evidence not there to support prosecutors' claims
An appeals court has tossed out a “contempt” finding against former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who not long ago was jailed for nine years for a situation in which she allegedly revealed an election systems password, for lack of evidence.
A report from Colorado Politics explains the Colorado Court of Appeals determined there simply wasn’t sufficient evidence to sustain the claim by retired judge Paul Dunkelman, and the accompanying $1,500 fine.
Witnesses told Dunkelman of seeing Peters, during a court hearing, holding her iPad as if recording, and on that basis Dunkelman held Peters in contempt.
He claimed, “She was recording a proceeding. She was doing so covertly. She hid the fact when called out on it by Judge Barrett — certainly an indication to this court that Ms. Peters was aware it was not acceptable, if not a violation of a court order.”
But the appeals court noted there was no finding at the lower court that were was a valid court order prohibiting recording, and whether Peters knew about it.
The appeals panel said there simply wasn’t evidence in the record to support the case against Peters, a former Mesa County clerk who is serving a sentence of nine years for “attempting to influence a public servant, official misconduct and related offenses stemming from a security breach of her office’s elections equipment in 2021.”
The contempt claim developed from Peters’ attendance at a hearing for her deputy clerk in 2022. Prosecutors claimed she was recording and she denied it.
The judge then continued the hearing, failing to have determined that Peters had been recording.
Prosecutors later brought their now-debunked claim against Peters.
Judge Stephanie Dunn, on the appeals panel, confirmed, “Peters is correct that the contempt judgment lacks several required findings, without which it cannot stand.”
While Peters is serving a prison term for her actions that might have exposed an election systems password, prosecutors have given a pass to a Democrat state official in Colorado, Jenna Griswold, the secretary of state, who allowed lists of election systems passwords to be posted online and then schemed to conceal that fact.
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked her agenda with a scolding.
That report explained Griswold “played an integral role when Tina Peters, then a clerk in Mesa County, made a copy of the 2020 election results from her county and, in the course, exposed briefly an election systems password.”
Prosecutors gave Griswold a pass after she leaked “current passwords for voting equipment in 34 Colorado counties, including El Paso.”
Griswold has claimed there was no election security threat because two passwords are needed to access each machine.
Originally Published at Daily Wire, World Net Daily, or The Blaze
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