Colorado
Former Colorado clerk was shocked after computer images were shared online, employee testifies
DENVER — DENVER (AP) —
An employee of former Colorado clerk Tina Peters who says she was present when her boss allowed an outsider posing as a county employee to breach her voting system’s computer testified Wednesday that Peters was shocked when images from the computer appeared online.
In the summer of 2021, former elections manager Sandra Brown said Peters called her after seeing the photos and videos she took of the Dominion Voting Systems’ hard drive and said, “I don’t know what to do,” using an obscenity to express her distress over the possible consequences. Soon after that, as authorities began investigating what had happened, Peters and her attorney advised Brown and another employee to buy disposable cellphones known as burner phones so their conversations with her and lawyers could not be discovered by investigators and urged them not to talk to law enforcement, Brown said.
After Brown was indicted and turned herself in, Peters came to visit her at jail the same day, she said.
“She came in and she said, ‘I love you, you have support, and don’t say anything,’” said Brown, who said Peters also gave her the number of an attorney who could represent her in court for her bail hearing. Brown eventually got another attorney and pleaded guilty under a plea deal that required her to testify against Peters.
Peters’ attorneys argue she only wanted to preserve election data before the system got a software update and did not want that information shared with the world. They say she was acting under her authority as clerk and did not break any laws.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, have portrayed Peters as someone who had become “fixated” on voting problems after becoming involved with activists who had questioned the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election results, including Douglas Frank, an Ohio math teacher who worked for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell. The defense says she was a responsive public official who wanted to be able to answer questions about the election in her community in western Colorado’s Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that voted for Donald Trump in the election.
Prosecutors allege the plan to take an image of the voting system’s hard drive was hatched during an April 2021 meeting with Frank, Peters and others in her office when he was in town to give a presentation on voting fraud. On a secret recording made by another elections employee, Frank told Peters that uncovering corruption in her voting system and cleaning it up would be “a feather in your cap.” Peters invited Frank to come back the following month for the software update for the county’s voting machines. Frank said he could instead send a team that’s “the best in the country.”
According to prosecutors, Frank sent a retired surfer from California and fellow Lindell associate, Conan Hayes, to take an image of the hard drive before and after the software update. Peters is accused of passing Hayes off as an elections employee using another person’s badge, a person she allegedly pretended to hire only so she could use the badge to get Hayes in to also observe the update. The Colorado Secretary of State’s office, which facilitated the update being done with Dominion, had denied Peters’ requests to have an outside computer expert to be in the room.
Hayes has not been charged with a crime. He did not respond messages left at telephone numbers listed for him and to an email seeking comment about the allegations.
The defense claims that Peters thought Hayes was working as a government informant and that he only agreed to help her if his identity was concealed. Judge Matthew Barrett has barred the defense from discussing that claim in front of jurors. Prosecutors say there’s no evidence to support that Hayes was an informant. Barrett has also ruled that, even if Peters believed he was, it is not an excuse for what she is accused of doing.
After lawyer Amy Jones, a former Ohio judge, suggested that Peters believed Hayes was an informant during opening statements, Barrett told jurors to “put that out of your minds.” After the jury left, he scolded the defense for bringing it up despite his prior order not to introduce it.
Peters is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, one count of identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.
The trial is expected to continue through early next week.
Colorado
Two-alarm fire damages hotel in Estes Park, 1 person taken to a Colorado hospital
A two-alarm fire damaged a hotel in Estes Park on Friday night. It happened at Expedition Lodge Estes Park just north of Lake Estes.
The lodge, located at 1701 North Lake Avenue on the east side of the Colorado mountain town, was evacuated after 8:30 p.m. and the fire chief said by 10 p.m. the fire was under control.
One person was hurt and taken to a hospital.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. So far it’s not clear how much damage it caused.
A total of 25 firefighters fought the blaze.
Colorado
Warm storm delivers modest totals to Colorado’s northern mountains
Lucas Herbert/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
Friday morning wrapped up a warm storm across Colorado’s northern and central mountains, bringing totals of up to 10 inches of snowfall for several resorts.
Higher elevation areas of the northern mountains — particularly those in and near Summit County and closer to the Continental Divide — received the most amount of snow, with Copper, Winter Park and Breckenridge mountains seeing among the highest totals.
Meanwhile, lower base areas and valleys received rain and cloudy skies, thanks to a warmer storm with a snow line of roughly 9,000 feet.
Earlier this week, OpenSnow meteorologists predicted the storm’s snow totals would be around 5-10 inches, closely matching actual totals for the northern mountains. The central mountains all saw less than 5 inches of snow.
Here’s how much snow fell between Wednesday through Friday morning for some Western Slope mountains, according to a Friday report from OpenSnow:
Aspen Mountain: 0.5 inches
Snowmass: 0.5 inches
Copper Mountain: 10 inches
Winter Park: 9 inches
Breckenridge Ski Resort: 9 inches
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area: 8.5 inches
Keystone Resort: 8 inches
Loveland Ski Area: 7 inches
Vail Mountain: 7 inches
Steamboat Resort: 6 inches
Beaver Creek: 6 inches
Irwin: 4.5 inches
Cooper Mountain: 4 inches
Sunlight: 0.5 inches
Friday and Saturday will be dry, while Sunday will bring northern showers. The next storms are forecast to be around March 3-4 and March 6-7, both favoring the northern mountains.
Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
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