BY MEGAN SCHRADER
MSCHRADER@DENVERPOST.COM / @MEGANSCHRADER

Pro tip to Tina Peters and her legal representatives — lying to the public about easily verifiable claims makes your client less sympathetic to Coloradans wondering whether she should be released from jail early. And make no mistake, whether or not Gov. Jared Polis grants Peters clemency is entirely based on how sympathetic her case is to both Polis and the public.

This week Peters' representatives sent out a press release and went on conservative media saying she had been "assaulted" in a closet at the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo. The story was that Peters had been attacked "from behind."

The problem, of course, is that surveillance video from the facility tells a different story. The Denver Post obtained footage that shows Peters moving a large cart in a hallway and then partially pulling it behind her through a doorway. Another woman comes to the door, leans just past the cart toward the door, but does not enter. Then Peters quickly pushes the cart out of the way, comes back into the view of the camera, grabs the woman and pushes her.

The incident appears to have been a very minor scuffle, nothing that anyone would have noted, if not for Peters' attorneys decision to blow it out of proportion and highlight it in the media.

None of this helps Peters' case.

She is asking Gov. Jared Polis for clemency from a fair conviction imposed by a jury of her peers and a harsh sentence imposed by a judge thoroughly annoyed by her courtroom demeanor. Clemency is reserved for people who show contrition, growth, reform. The scuffle caught on camera would never prevent someone from getting clemency, but lying about it underlines the exact behavior that got Peters in trouble in the first place. She engaged in deception and fraud to try and prove that President Donald Trump had won the 2020 election, and that Biden had been the beneficiary of corrupted voting machines and software. Despite her continued assertions of the opposite, the data that she presented to the public did not prove that the voting machines in Mesa County had been altered to give Biden false votes.

Peters was sentenced to nine years in jail for her crimes. The sentence was absolutely harsh, but judges impose harsh sentences for a variety of reasons every single day. That alone doesn't make her a worthy candidate for clemency. She is likely to get released early on parole through good behavior credits and could be free as early as March 2028, even without Polis taking action to reduce her sentence. That timing seems perfect as Trump is guaranteed to leave office 10 months later in January 2029, and his corrupting influence on Peters will wane as he surrenders the White House to the winner of America's free and fair election that November.

What would make Peters a worthy candidate for clemency in the public eye is an apology for her breach of public trust, and maybe, just maybe, a long overdue admission that she was wrong about Colorado's secure, paper-ballot election system.

Polis could move her mandatory release date to January 2029 if he feels moved by her appeals for mercy, which would likely move up he eligibility date for parole after good time credits to something much more imminent.

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Joe Heller, hellertoons.com

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