Federal judge refuses to release pro-Trump clerk convicted in 2020 election scheme

A federal judge has refused to release a former Colorado clerk who was convicted of attempting to breach voting systems in hopes of proving President Donald Trump's claims of election malfeasance in 2020.

The former clerk, 70-year-old Tina Peters, was sentenced to nine years in prison after a state jury convicted her of participating in a scheme to breach the Mesa County voting systems. Peters filed a lawsuit seeking her release earlier this year, arguing that her free speech rights had been violated, but Judge Scott Varholak rejected the move on Monday.

"Ms. Peters raises important constitutional questions concerning whether the trial court improperly punished her more severely because of her protected First Amendment speech," Varholak wrote. "But because this question remains pending before Colorado courts, this Court must abstain from answering that question until after the Colorado courts have decided the issue."

Peters, the only Trump ally to face prison time for 2020 election denial, has received significant support from the president.

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Former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters is serving nine years in prison for assisting an election denial scheme in 2020. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

"Tina is an innocent Political Prisoner being horribly and unjustly punished in the form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. This is a Communist persecution by the Radical Left Democrats to cover up their Election crimes and misdeeds in 2020. The same Democrat Party that flies to El Salvador to try to free an MS-13 Terrorist, is cruelly imprisoning, perhaps for life, a grandmother whose brave and heroic son gave his life for America," he wrote on Truth Social in May.

"Colorado must end this unjust incarceration of an innocent American," he added.

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President Donald Trump has demanded Peters' release, but her conviction on state-level charges limits federal authority to intervene. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)

Trump and the Department of Justice have little influence on the case, however, because Peters was convicted of state-level crimes. His administration has unsuccessfully sought to have her transferred into federal custody.

Election judges checking ballots at the adjudication section at the Denver Elections Division in Denver, Colorado on Thursday. October 29, 2020. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has vowed not to pardon Peters as any part of a deal with Trump, saying he would not participate in "any scheme to prevent her from being held accountable under Colorado law."