Ethics Complaints Move Forward Against Former Mesa County Employee Tina Peters | News

The state Ethics Commission has decided to move forward with three ethics complaints filed against former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters.

The ethics complaints against Peters were put on hold due to the recently concluded criminal case related to a 2021 security breach involving voting equipment at the recorder’s office. Peters was sentenced to nine years in the Mesa County Jail and state prison on the charges.

She is appealing the decision.

In an order issued Monday, Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission said that given that the criminal case took two and a half years, further delays would be detrimental to complainant Anne Landman of Grand Junction.

There is virtually no overlap between the criminal case and the ethics complaints, the commission said in its order, other than the fact that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell allegedly made contributions to its legal fund, which is part of the complaints.

The commission and the public “have a strong interest in the expeditious resolution of ethics complaints against public officials,” the commission said.

The Commission also found that Peters had failed to provide a legal basis for staying civil proceedings pending criminal proceedings.

After a two-week trial, Peters was found guilty on August 12 of seven of 10 charges, including four felonies: three counts of attempting to influence a public official and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. She was also convicted of three misdemeanors: first-degree official misconduct, dereliction of duty and failure to comply with an order of the Secretary of State.

She was acquitted of three additional charges: an additional count of criminal impersonation, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and identity theft.

The three ethics complaints, all filed by Landman, are:

• August 2021: The complaint alleged that Peters accepted thousands of dollars in services, travel, security and favors from Lindell for a cyber symposium in South Dakota.

• January 2022: The complaint alleges that Peters operated a criminal defense fund in violation of the Ethics Act, specifically a “violation of the public trust by attempting to obtain personal financial gain through her public office.” Second, the complaint alleged that she operated the fund in violation of the Ethics Commission’s guidelines for soliciting and accepting funds for defense in criminal proceedings. These policies require that all donations be disclosed and that the fund cannot be managed by anyone directly associated with Peters. Landman wrote that Peters operated the fund in her capacity as an elected official and not as an individual. Peters never revealed the identities of these donors.

• May 2022: The complaint alleged that Peters accepted an $800,000 donation from Lindell, based on a statement made by Lindell on April 5, 2022 in Denver. By that time, Peters had shut down the legal defense fund’s website, StandWithTina.org, and moved her fundraising to Lindell’s Legal Offense Fund, which is based in another state.

Lindell told 9News he deposited “$3, $4, $5, maybe $800,000 of my own money” into Peter’s legal defense fund. Peters claimed she had no knowledge of Lindell’s donations, even though Peters and her allies had repeatedly urged people to donate to Lindell’s fund.

The Commission decided at the beginning of the year to defer processing these complaints pending criminal proceedings.

Peters has denied all allegations.

If the commission concludes that Peters violated state ethics laws and rules, the fines could be the largest in state history.

The commission’s fine structure is to penalize twice the cost of unauthorized spending, a policy it enforced in two high-profile cases against then-Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who represents Peters.

Based on the Commission’s fines precedent, if the donations Peters accepted from Lindell were double, her fine could be at least $1.6 million, not to mention fines related to the cost of services, Travel, security and alleged favors from Lindell. plus the other donations accepted on her behalf by both the website StandWithTina.org and the Lindell Legal Defense Fund – neither of which were ever publicly disclosed.

A year ago, an administrative law judge found that Peters had violated state campaign finance laws in two complaints filed by Scott Beilfuss of Grand Junction. She was fined $15,400 for those violations, which involved some of the same issues as the ethics complaints. According to the State Department, this decision was appealed to the district court.

No date has been set for a hearing on the complaints.

“It’s a sad day when you can get away with greater crimes,” said Landman, the Grand Junction resident who filed the ethics complaints.

She said she welcomed the commission’s decision.

“She has violated the ethics law with such impunity that it would be a grave mistake not to take action,” Landman said.

Landman is represented by Jane Feldman, a former executive director of the Ethics Commission, and Trey Rogers of Law Kornfeld, former legal counsel to Gov. Bill Ritter, Jr.