DENVER, CO - APRIL 5 : Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters is in the rally at west steps of Colorado State Capitol building in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday, April 5, 2022. Candidates for higher office continue to try to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election and integrity of Colorado elections as the 2022 election draws closer.(Photo by Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
By Jeremy Harlan and Gregory Krieg | CNN
Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, and her state’s most prominent 2020 election denier — was found guilty Friday of misdemeanor obstruction of a government operation, according to Mesa County’s court clerk.
Peters was acquitted of obstructing a peace officer, Mesa County Court Clerk Ann Brigham said.
Peters was arrested by Grand Junction police in February 2022 at a local business while state investigators attempted to execute a search warrant. According to a police affidavit from the Grand Junction Police Department, Peters was not cooperating with investigators as they tried to seize an iPad sought in the search warrant.
Peters stepped in between an officer and a patron who allegedly blocked investigators from accessing the table, according to the affidavit. When officers tried to move her to the side, she “actively” resisted, the affidavit said.
After hearing two days of testimony, a six-person jury returned the split verdicts on Peters.
The verdicts come less than a year after she lost the GOP primary for secretary of state to fomer Jefferson County clerk Pam Anderson — then claimed fraud, again with no evidence. Peters was one of several vocal election conspiracy theorists to fail in their bids for higher office in 2022.
Peters and her top deputy were indicted last March following a local investigation into a security breach that had resulted in confidential voting machine logins, and forensic images of their hard drives, being published in a QAnon-affiliated Telegram channel in early August 2021.
Peters, who last month announced her candidacy to become chair of the Colorado GOP, still faces multiple felony counts for her alleged involvement in the election security breach in her county offices.
Her trial for those charges is set for late August.
Originally published at The Associated Press