Following jail incident, Tina Peters renews request for bond pending appeal

DENVER (CN) — Former Mesa County elections clerk Tina Peters renewed her request for bond pending appeal following an incident at LaVista Women’s Correctional Facility in Pueblo, Colorado.

“Housing me with young, violent criminals puts me in danger, especially because I am a controversial high-profile inmate,” wrote Peters, 70, in a declaration to the court.

Peters is serving a nine-year sentence after a jury found her guilty in August 2024 on charges related to bringing an unauthorized person to view a voting machine update following the Grand Junction municipal election in 2021. The recordings were later leaked onto the social media site Telegram.

Peters appealed her conviction, with oral argument held before the Colorado Court of Appeals on Jan. 14.

The trial judge initially denied Peters’ request for bond pending her appeal, which the Court of Appeals declined to review in December 2024. Peters filed a federal habeas corpus petition, which a magistrate judge denied in December after finding the state process must be completed before the federal court can intervene.

Following a Jan. 18 incident at the jail, Peters renewed her request for release before the Colorado Court of Appeals, claiming being in custody places her in danger, and asking for a $25,000 bond.

Peters says she has been attacked five times in state custody. On Jan. 18, Peters said she was attacked by a 29-year-old woman serving six years for aggravated assault, and then placed in solitary confinement.

In her declaration, Peters said she was moving a portable swamp cooler into a closet, which had been used to counteract the prison’s broken HVAC system that set her unit’s temperature to 90 degrees.

Video of the incident shows a woman approaching Peters after she pulled the cooler into a closet. Video then captured Peters rushing from the closet and wrapping her hands around the woman’s neck. In a declaration provided to the court, Peters said the woman initiated the attack, accusing her of disrespect and lunging between the closet door and cooler.

“The right-fisted punch is off-camera, shielded from view behind the closet,” Peters wrote.

In the declaration, Peters said her political enemies “want me to die in prison,” and that she believes the woman initiated the attack to get her in trouble.

In her petition, Peters argues 20th Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett failed to hold an evidentiary hearing before revoking her bond, after finding her criticism of Mesa County voting machines made her “a danger to our community.”

In arguing Barrett punished her for exercising her First Amendment rights, Peters quoted Barrett’s comment during sentencing that “prison is for those folks where we send people who are a danger to all of us, whether it be by the pen or the sword or the word of mouth."

Supporters of Peters believe she is being punished for uncovering evidence of malfeasance, a claim debunked by a state investigation.

President Donald Trump granted a symbolic pardon to Peters in December, as U.S. presidents do not have the power to overturn state convictions. But Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, told Colorado Public Radio he is reviewing whether to grant clemency to Peters due to her age and declining health.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the petition.

Peters is represented by attorney John Case, of Littleton, Colorado, who did not immediately respond to an inquiry for comment.

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