A judge Thursday ordered indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to be arrested for violating the conditions of her bond by traveling to Las Vegas this week without first notifying the court and prosecutors.
Mesa County District Court Judge Matthew David Barrett issued a warrant for Peters’ arrest and for her to be held in jail pending a hearing. He also revoked her $25,000 cash bond.
Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein on Wednesday asked Barrett to revoke Peters’ bond because she is prohibited from leaving Colorado without court approval.
Peters was in Las Vegas on Tuesday to attend a Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association conference. Additionally, Peters signed a notarized letter to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Monday seeking a recount of the Republican primary for secretary of state, which Peters lost. The letter was notarized by a notary in Clark County, Nevada.
Rubinstein agreed to let Peters travel out of state while she was running for secretary of state after Peters’ attorney, Harvey Steinberg, said that she needed to do so as part of her bid for higher office.
Peters’ travels in recent months included a trip to the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, the resort owned by former President Donald Trump.
But Rubinstein filed a motion on Monday asking Barrett to require that any out-of-state travel by Peters be approved.
“Ms. Peters has lost the election and is no longer a candidate,” Rubinstein wrote in a court motion this week. “The people believe that Ms. Peters needs to be treated like all other criminal defendants on bond and needs to file a motion asking for a modification of her bond conditions, and get permission from the court prior to traveling. Ms. Peters has less motivation to appear in court now that she is no longer a candidate. Additionally, she has evidenced through her travel prior to the election that she has the means to flee if she wants to.”
Barrett agreed to prohibit Peters from traveling out of state without court approval pending a hearing on the matter.
Steinberg didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment, but he filed a motion Thursday afternoon saying it was an oversight on his part that the court wasn’t made aware of Peters’ travel to Las Vegas and failure to comply with the order on Monday requiring that she get permission before traveling out of state.
“If she knew that the court prohibited her travel, she would not have publicized that she was in Las Vegas,” Steinberg wrote in his motion, which seeks to quash the arrest warrant.
Peters also told a reporter for KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that she submitted her itinerary to her attorney and said Rubinstein was engaged in a “vicious retaliatory attack” for her criticism of his handling of a drug case.
Peters was indicted in March on 10 counts, including allegations of attempting to influence a public servant and criminal impersonation. The charges stem from a security breach of her county’s election system.
Mesa County Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley and the former Mesa County elections manager, Sandra Brown, have also been charged in the case.
Peters, an election conspiracy theorist, says she is innocent and the prosecution against her is politically motivated.
Peters is among a slate of Republican 2020 election deniers who lost their primary bids in Colorado last month.