Tina Peters, Trump's election conspirator, is sentenced to nine years in prison

Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who pushed the false conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election due to voter fraud, was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison for crimes related to a violation of her county's voting system .

“You’re not a hero,” state District Court Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters. “You are a charlatan who has used and continues to use your former position in office to sell a snake oil that has proven time and time again to be trash.”

“Their lies are well documented and these convictions are serious. “I have no doubt you would do it again if you could,” Barrett told the former Mesa County clerk.

“You are as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen.”

Peters, who had applied for a suspended sentence, told the judge before sentencing: “I have never broken the law with malicious intent. I just wanted to serve the people of Mesa County.”

Prosecutors had asked Barrett to give him the maximum sentence: 20 years in prison.

She was immediately taken into custody after Barrett rejected her attorney's request for release.

Peters, 68, was convicted by a jury in August of seven felonies, including attempting to influence a public official, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, dereliction of duty and failure to comply with the Secretary of State's requirements.

She was accused of using another person's security ID to give another person access to her county's voting system.

The person using this badge was associated with Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow and a leading proponent of the claim that Trump's defeat for a second term was due to voter fraud.

Peters had falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems, which formed Mesa County's election system, of being involved in the alleged plot against Trump.