Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, one-time hero to election deniers, convicted in computer breach

DENVER (AP) — Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, the first local election official to be charged with a security breach after the 2020 election as unfounded conspiracy theories swirled, was found guilty by a jury on most charges Monday.

Peters, a one-time hero to election deniers, was accused of using someone else’s security badge to give an expert affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell access to the Mesa County election system and deceiving other officials about that person's identity.

Lindell is a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Donald Trump. His online broadcasting site has been showing a livestream of Peters' trial and sending out daily email updates, sometimes asking for prayers for Peters and including statements from her.

Prosecutors said Peters was seeking fame and became “fixated” on voting problems after becoming involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election results.

The breach Peters was charged of orchestrating heightened concerns over potential insider threats, in which rogue election workers sympathetic to partisan lies could use their access and knowledge to launch an attack from within.

Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.

She was found not guilty of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and one count of criminal impersonation, rejecting that in those instances Peters had used the identity of the security badge's owner, a local man named Gerald Wood, without his permission.

Peters stood next to one of her attorneys at the defense table as the verdict was read in a quiet courtroom. Judge Matthew Barrett had warned those in the courtroom that he would not tolerate any outbursts.

She will be sentenced Oct. 3.

In a post on the social media platform X after the verdict, Peters accused Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, which made her county's election system, as well as lawyers for state election officials of stealing votes.

“I will continue to fight until the Truth is revealed that was not allowed to be brought during this trial. This is a sad day for our nation and the world. But we WILL win in the end,” she said.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, whose office helped launch the investigation into Peters, said she will now face the consequences for compromising her own election equipment “trying to prove Trump's Big Lie.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the verdict sent a message.

“Today’s verdict is a warning to others that they will face serious consequences if they attempt to illegally tamper with our voting processes or election systems. I want to be clear—our elections are safe and fair," he said in a statement.

The verdict came just hours after prosecutors urged jurors to convict Peters, saying she deceived government employees so she could work with outsiders affiliated with Lindell.

In closing trial arguments, prosecutor Janet Drake argued that the former clerk allowed a man posing as a county employee to take images of the election system's hard drive before and after a software upgrade in May 2021.

Drake said Peters observed the update so she could become the “hero” and appear at Lindell's symposium on the 2020 presidential election a few months later.

“The defendant was a fox guarding the henhouse. It was her job to protect the election equipment, and she turned on it and used her power for her own advantage,” said Drake, a lawyer from the Colorado Attorney General's Office.

Drake has been working for the district attorney in Mesa County, a largely Republican county near the Utah border, to prosecute the case.

Before jurors had begun deliberating Monday, the defense told them that Peters had not committed any crimes and only wanted to preserve election records after the county would not allow her to have one of its technology experts present at the software update.

Defense lawyer John Case said Peters had to preserve records to access the voting system to find out things like whether anyone from “China or Canada” had accessed the machine while ballots were being counted.

“And thank God she did. Otherwise we really wouldn’t know what happened,” he said.

Peters allowed a former surfer from California affiliated with Lindell, Conan Hayes, to observe the software update and make copies of the hard drive using Wood's security badge. Peters told visiting officials that Hayes, posing as Wood, worked for her. But while prosecutors said Peters committed identity theft by taking Wood's security badge and giving it to Hayes to conceal his identity, the defense said Wood was in on the scheme so Peters did not commit a crime by doing that.

Wood denied that when he testified during the trial.

Political activist Sherronna Bishop, who helped introduce Peters to people working with Lindell, testified that Wood knew his identity would be used based on a Signal chat between her, Wood and Peters. No agreement was spelled out in the chat.

The day after the first image of the hard drive was taken, Bishop testified that she posted a voice recording in the chat. The content of that recording was not included in screenshots of the chat introduced by the defense. The person identified as Wood responded to that unknown message by saying “I was glad to help out. I do hope the effort proved fruitful," according to the screenshots.

Prosecutor Robert Shapiro told jurors that Bishop was not credible.

Former Mesa County, Colo., Tina Peters, center, laughs as she waits with her supporters for an elevator at the Mesa County Justice Center Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Grand Junction, Colo. (Larry Robinson/Grand Junction Sentinel via AP)

Former Mesa County, Colo., county clerk Tina Peters, center, arrives at the Mesa County Justice Center for her trial Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Grand Junction, Colo. (Larry Robinson/Grand Junction Sentinel via AP)

Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters arrives at the Mesa County Justice Center for her trial Wednesday, July 31, 2024, with her team of lawyers in Grand Junction, Colo. (Christopher Tomlinson/Grand Junction Sentinel via AP)

Former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, third from left, arrives at the Mesa County Justice Center for her trial Wednesday, July 31, 2024, with her team of lawyers in Grand Junction, Colo. (Christopher Tomlinson/Grand Junction Sentinel via AP)

FILE - Tina Peters, former Mesa County, Colo., clerk, listens during her trial, March 3, 2023, in Grand Junction, Colo. (Scott Crabtree/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel via AP, Pool, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Disgraced ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein faces mounting legal and health troubles some seven years after scores of women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him, helping launch the global #MeToo movement.

On Thursday, he was indicted on additional sex crimes charges in New York ahead of a retrial this fall. The grand jury decision remains sealed until he is formally arraigned in court.

Weinstein has maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.

Meanwhile, the 72-year-old remains hospitalized following emergency heart surgery — just the latest in an assortment of medical ailments that have cropped up while in custody.

Here’s a recap of where things stand:

In April, New York's highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges, ruling that the trial judge had unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case.

A new trial was ordered and the tentative start date is Nov. 12.

One of the two accusers in that case has said she is prepared to testify against Weinstein again, but it remains to be seen if the other accuser will also take the stand once more.

Weinstein had been sentenced to 23 years in prison for that conviction.

Earlier this month, prosecutors disclosed that a Manhattan grand jury had reviewed evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein.

They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and in a Lower Manhattan residential building between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.

It is unclear when Weinstein will be formally charged on those allegations, given his current health condition. The next court hearing ahead of the retrial is slated for Sept. 18.

It is also unclear how the additional allegations will factor in the retrial. Prosecutors want to include the new charges in the retrial, but Weinstein’s lawyers oppose that, saying it should be a separate case.

In 2022, Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count after a one-month trial in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

During the trial, a woman testified that Weinstein appeared uninvited at her hotel room during the LA Italia Film Festival in 2013 and that Weinstein became sexually aggressive after she let him in.

Weinstein’s lawyers appealed the conviction in June, arguing the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence that the Italian model and actor had a sexual relationship with the film festival director at the time of the alleged attack.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Sept. 5 that it had decided to drop two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’

In 2022, the agency authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file the charges against Weinstein over an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.

Weinstein also faces several lawsuits brought by women accusing him of sexual misconduct.

Among the latest is one from actor Julia Ormond, who starred opposite Brad Pitt in “Legends of the Fall” and Harrison Ford in “Sabrina.” She filed the lawsuit last year in New York accusing Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in 1995 and then hindering her career.

The majority of lawsuits against Weinstein were brought to a close through a 2021 settlement as part of the bankruptcy of his former film company, The Weinstein Co. The agreement included a victims’ fund of about $17 million for some 40 women who sued him.

Weinstein’s lawyers have regularly raised concerns about his worsening health since being taken into custody following his 2020 conviction.

During his appearances in Manhattan court, he’s regularly transported in a wheelchair and his lawyers say he suffers from macular degeneration and diabetes that’s worsened due to the poor jailhouse diet.

Weinstein’s pericardiocentesis surgery last week was to drain fluid around his heart. His lawyers say his medical regimen causes him to retain water and that he must be constantly monitored to ensure the fluid buildup isn’t deadly.

A judge has granted his request to remain at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital indefinitely instead of being transferred back to the infirmary ward at the city’s notorious Rikers Island jail complex.

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

A look at Harvey Weinstein’s health and legal woes as he faces more criminal charges

A look at Harvey Weinstein’s health and legal woes as he faces more criminal charges

FILE — Harvey Weinstein appears for a pretrial hearing in Manhattan criminal court, July 19, 2024, in New York. (Adam Gray/Pool Photo via AP, File)