Tina Peters found not guilty of assault in prison scuffle, guilty on lesser violation

Seth Klamann, The Denver Post on Mar 17, 2026

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DENVER — Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was found not guilty of assaulting another inmate after a brief scufffle in January, though she was convicted of a lesser charge, the Department of Corrections said.

Peters had a disciplinary hearing on March 10, nearly two months after she grabbed a fellow inmate and shoved her into the middle of a prison room. While she was cleared of a Corrections Department assault violation, Peters was found guilty of “unauthorized absence,” which effectively means she left her assigned area or was in a place she shouldn’t have been.

Corrections Department spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia said the two charges stemmed from the same January incident. She said she wasn’t certain if Peters had faced any disciplinary measures for the lesser charge. According to a copy of Peters’ prison file, she had previously received at least four negative write-ups from prison officials for minor offenses.

Last week, an X account run by Peters’ supporters announced that the clerk, who is serving a nine-year term of incarceration after being convicted of several felonies in 2024, had been found not guilty. The department said last week that she was given an initial — though informal — determination after her March 10 hearing but that the decision wasn’t formalized until Monday.

Peters’ attorneys, Peter Ticktin and John Case, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Monday evening.

In surveillance footage of the fight obtained by The Denver Post, Peters is shown pushing a cart into a closet. While Peters is in the closet and out of view, another inmate approaches the closet and begins to move the cart out of the way of the room’s door. Peters then re-enters the camera’s frame, with her hand around the other inmate’s neck or upper arm. She pushes the other woman into the middle of the larger room before shoving her and walking away.

The incident — and the Corrections Department’s subsequent hearing process — comes after Gov. Jared Polis again signaled his apparent intent to reduce Peters’ sentence, which he has called harsh and unusual. Securing Peters’ early release has been of frequent interest for President Donald Trump, who has viewed the former election official as an ally in his baseless attempt to discredit his 2020 election loss.

Polis’ latest hint, delivered on social media earlier this month, drew criticism from every state Democratic lawmaker, as well as from other elected officials, like Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Attorney General Phil Weiser.

After the backlash, Polis’ office privately told lawmakers that the governor intended to wait to intervene until after the Colorado Court of Appeals issues its own ruling on Peters’ sentence. A panel of judges on the court appeared skeptical of the length of the Trump ally’s prison term earlier this year.