DENVER — Tina Peters was released from a Pueblo prison Monday morning after a commutation from Gov. Jared Polis ended both her 20-month incarceration and a months-long pressure campaign by President Donald Trump.

Her release was confirmed Monday morning by Adrienne Mazzone, spokeswoman for Peters’ legal team. Alondra Gonzales-Garcia, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, also confirmed her release but declined to provide further details “regarding residential placement, reporting schedules or travel logistics.”

It remains unclear under what conditions Peters, 70, was released. The Corrections Department said Friday that she would be released under a parole agreement, though the agency had not responded to a Denver Post records request for that document as of Monday.

State officials completed a pre-parole investigation of her home last week and identified no issues, according to her internal prison file.

Dan Rubinstein, the Mesa County district attorney who prosecuted Peters, said Monday that he was unaware of Peters’ parole conditions. He otherwise declined to comment.

A former Mesa County clerk, Peters was sentenced to a total of nine years in jail and prison in October 2024. She was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors for overseeing a plot to grant an unauthorized third party access to secure voting systems. A key ally of Donald Trump, Peters’ conviction and incarceration became a rallying cry for the president and his election-conspiracist allies.

Peters’ release, authorized by Polis’ commutation last month, had long been expected: He had publicly mused that her sentence was too long, and his office had discussed her commutation with other officials, including the judge who sentenced her. Other state officials became resigned to the seeming imminence of a Polis commutation.

Late last year, the Trump administration sought to transfer her into federal custody. When that failed, Trump publicly blasted Polis. He then vetoed legislation that would’ve funded a water pipeline in southeast Colorado, and his administration moved to gut Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research. Several Democratic officials accused Trump of retaliating against the state because of Peters, and when Polis’ commutation was announced, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert told 9News that “Tina was the reason we couldn’t get water.”

Throughout the first months of the year, Polis had continued to float the idea that Peters’ sentence was harsh. Amid pressure from incensed lawmakers and other elected officials, his office privately told legislators that the governor would wait to make a decision on her sentence until an appeals court weighed in.

In April, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld Peters’ convictions but ordered that she must be resentenced, finding that her trial judge had based part of his original sentence on Peters’ speech. Polis’ commutation came several weeks later. The governor argued that Peters had been unfairly sentenced and that he didn’t want to wait for her appeals and resentencing to be concluded because they would take too long.

Polis’ decision has sparked sharp recrimination from other Democrats. He was censured in an overwhelming vote by the state Democratic Party’s central committee, prompting Polis to appear on a subsequent party video call with black tape over his mouth.

The criticism continued Monday. In a statement, Secretary of State Jena Griswold called Polis’ decision to commute Peters’ sentence “an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado and election officials across the country.

“It sends a dangerous message about accountability for those who would attack elections,” Griswold wrote. “Peters’ release also will embolden the election denial movement; since the grant of clemency, she has continued to spread election falsehoods and conspiracies.”

--------

©2026 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at denverpost.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.