Supporters of incarcerated former Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters are pushing to get her transferred from a state facility to a federal prison, arguing that it would be a safer environment as she appeals her state conviction. And the federal Bureau of Prisons has now officially requested the move.
Peters is currently incarcerated at the La Vista Correctional Facility, a medium-security facility for women located in Pueblo. In 2024, a state judge sentenced Peters to nine years in prison and jail after she was found guilty of several felonies stemming from her efforts to help a man gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion voting machines in 2021.
Colorado has not said whether it would consider transferring her to a federal facility, but told CPR News via email it is reviewing the request.
“Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) can confirm that on November 12, 2025, we received a letter from the Federal Bureau of Prisons regarding Tina Peters,” a DOC spokesperson wrote.
“The letter is currently under review in accordance with all applicable departmental policies and procedures.”
The department said there is a multi-step process to formally approve the transfer of an incarcerated individual to another jurisdiction, including a multi-disciplinary assessment, and that it can’t be initiated by an outside entity.
“This process is typically reserved for complex cases involving significant, long-term safety and security needs,” said a DOC spokesperson.
Peters’ attorneys have also filed a federal habeas petition to ask a federal judge to release her on bond while she appeals her state conviction. Her lead attorney, Peter Ticktin, told CPR News he is advocating to get her moved to a federal facility and pushing the U.S Department of Justice to join the effort. He said she has long-term safety concerns about her current situation.
“For somebody who's perhaps a little more genteel, a little bit more educated, a little bit more established, perhaps, it puts her in a more difficult position for sure. She's been threatened for sure,” said Ticktin.
He also said the state informed her legal team that, because of her behavior, she cannot move into a different zone within the state prison.
“There is sort of a level and a place in the prison where they can kind of isolate women and put them with safer people, but you need to get approved for that. And so they say, ‘oh, no, she's been written up too many times,’” said Ticktin.
The Colorado Department of Corrections declined to comment on whether Peters has reported threats or whether she has been written up for rule violations.
Her attorney, Ticktin, is a constitutional lawyer based in Florida who helped lobby for pardons for participants in the Jan. 6 attacks. He has known President Donald Trump since they were classmates at New York Military Academy, where Trump attended middle and high school.
Ticktin has questioned whether the Justice Department is doing everything it can to get Peters shifted to in a minimum-security federal prison. He said Peters is being targeted, as are other Trump supporters.
“Tina Peters is a proud American, and she's not embarrassed or ashamed in any way. She's proud of what she's done because she's not a criminal. She's just a good person.”
The DOJ has already involved itself in Peters’ habeas case, and Trump has posted multiple times on social media that she should be released from prison, calling her a “brave and Innocent patriot.”
Peters argues that the judge who oversaw the case, Matthew Barrett, denied her bail in order to silence her views on the integrity of American elections, violating her constitutionally protected right to free speech.
Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser said the state court denied bail for Peters because the court found she was a flight risk and a danger to the community. “The question is not whether the state-court decision was correct, but whether it was ‘objectively unreasonable,’” Weiser said in a legal document.
