Immediately after local and state officials learned that computer hard drives and secure passwords had been leaked onto the internet in August 2021, former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters told her then deputy that she was going to jail as a result.
Belinda Knisely, who had been Peters’ chief deputy during that time, testified at the former clerk’s criminal trial Tuesday that Peters knew she had done something wrong when she helped to make copies of election computers and sent them via mail to the election denier she had used to make those copies, Conan Hayes.
“I’m f'ed, I’m going to jail. It’s on the internet; it’s not supposed to be,” Knisley said Peters told her just before she boarded a private jet to an election denier symposium the same day her office was being searched by law enforcement.
“She told me she was going to go to jail in just about every conversation,” Knisley added. “She said it to me many times, ‘I’m going to go to jail over this.’”
On their cross examination, Peters’ defense attorney Michael Edminister asked Knisley about a medical condition that sometimes impacts her memory.
Knisley said that can happen when she’s under stress or later in the day when she is tired, but added that “I’m at perfect peace” while she testified late Tuesday afternoon.
Knisley had been indicted on similar charges that Peters faces by a Mesa County grand jury, but ended up in a plea deal that had her plea guilty to misdemeanor charges in exchange for testifying against Peters.
She said in that testimony that initially she fully believed that Peters had the right to do what she did, but later changed her mind.
“I never believed at that time that she didn’t do anything she wasn’t supposed to do,” Knisley said. “Things she did after the fact and the lying had caused her to be in trouble.”
Knisley confirmed earlier testimony from other witnesses in the trial that she did take county credentials given to Fruita resident Gerald Wood, who was to be a consultant to help Peters handle computers, but she did so under direct orders from Peters, who later gave them to Hayes to do that actual work.
A few days after those images were made, Peters had another clerk employee mail a package to Hayes at his California address.
Western Colorado
Tina Peters timeline
“I was told she was going to bring someone else in instead of Gerald Wood,” Knisley said. “I did question it when I was told. I was told by Peters that no one is going to look at the badge that close. She did not give me any information about the individual other than it was somebody that knew computers and software.”
She also testified that, when Peters was in South Dakota, Sherronna Bishop ordered her to remove the election computer tower before law enforcement got to it. Bishop, a long-time supporter and advocate for Peters who also believes the 2020 election was stolen, was with her at an election denier symposium hosted by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell where images of the county’s hard drive were scrutinized.
District Judge Matthew Barrett later said he has ruled that Bishop is an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case.
Knisley declined doing so, saying Bishop was not her boss and she wouldn’t take her directions. She said she and Sandra Brown, a one-time elections manager under Peters who is expected to testify against her later in the trial, made sure the computer was secure and still had the appropriate seals on it.
Knisley also testified that Peters told her and Brown to get a prepaid cell phone that can’t be tracked in future communications with her, telling them to pay for those phones in cash. Both already had personal and county-issued work cell phones.
“She did not want anything to be on my personal phone or the county’s phone,” Knisley said.
Earlier in the day, David Stahl, an employee of the election computers the county uses, Dominion Voting Systems, testified about the May 2021 upgrade of that equipment that Peters was questioning.
He, too, confirmed that the man known as Wood did not fit the description of the man he met during the trusted build upgrade.
Defense attorneys made more attempts to try to convince Barrett to allow testimony and evidence of the equipment’s reliability, but once again were shut down. That caused special prosecutor Robert Shapiro to issue a series of objections, finally saying, “This is absolutely becoming a circus.”
Barrett showed signs of being increasingly irritated with the attorneys, singling out the defense, saying they have offered a “string of questions that are highly inflammatory and could unduly influence the jury.”
“I can’t seem to get the parties to play within the rule of law,” Barrett added. “If you don’t like my rulings, you can take them up in the appeals court. We keep getting sidetracked. I have been incredibly accommodating, particularly to the defense.”
