Tina on Bannon’s War Room the morning after a Mesa County jury convicted her of 4 felonies and 3 misdemeanor counts related to her election tampering case.
Tina Peters’ criminal trial finally played out this past week, three years after she was accused of engaging in multiple felonies as Mesa County Clerk. The trial is being live-streamed by KREX, and you can watch it whenever Court is in session. The link to watch it is here, but if you haven’t tuned in yet, you’ve missed most of it. The prosecution and defense rested their cases Friday, August 9. Monday will bring closing arguments and jury instructions before the jury is sent to deliberate Tina’s fate. The judge said he thought the remaining phases of trial would likely be completed by noon on Monday, August 12.
Lots of information was presented at the trial, much of which the public hasn’t known about before, and most of it quite damning to Tina. Here are some of the biggest take-aways from the trial this week:
Cover of the new “Grand Junction Lifestyle” magazine recently distributed through the USPS mail
Yesterday’s mail brought a glossy new promotional magazine called “Grand Junction Lifestyle.” Given the cute kid and baby animal pictured on the cover, one would hope the lifestyle they’re trying to promote would be a healthy one. But instead, upon opening the front cover, readers are served up a two-page ad promoting one of the biggest corporate criminals and polluters on Earth, the Chevron Corporation:
KREX TV will be streaming the entire criminal trial of former Mesa County Clerk-turned-election denier Tina Peters whenever court is in session. You can view it on their website at this link, or live on YouTube at this link. Both links have a Chromecast icon, allowing you to cast live video to your TV if you have a Chromecast device.
Republican Party nominee for U.S. President Donald Trump, the first former U.S. president ever convicted of multiple felonies, was asked by ABC News journalist Rachel Scott about his fellow Republicans referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “a DEI hire.” Scott asked Trump if he believes Harris is only on the ticket because she’s a Black woman. He responded that he didn’t know she was Black.
Trump said,
“I have known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as black. Is she Indian or is she Black?”
Audible laughing and gasping from the audience can be heard in the CSPAN video clip.
Trump seems unaware that people can identify as being of more than one race, a characteristic that is known as being “multiracial.”
Many people in Mesa County favor Trump for president.
A vision of the proposed 29 Road interchange on I-70, with roundabouts (Illustration by FHUeng)
Photo: City of Grand Junction
7/25/24 @ 3:39 p.m. – Note: an earlier version of this blog attributed the quotes criticizing the finance director’s use of the word “decimate” to Engineering and Transportation Director Trent Prall. I’ve been informed that was incorrect. They were actually said by City Councilman Cody Kennedy. I have corrected the blog.
In a Grand Junction City Council workshop discussion July 15 about the proposed 29 Road interchange on I-70, City Finance Director Jennifer Tomaszewski, a Certified Public Accountant, told Council members that given the amount of revenue the City takes in from sales taxes, and the City’s current expenses and financial obligations, including its existing transportation debt and maintenance of parks and facilities, the proposed $2.5 million/year in debt service over 30 years that the City would take on to build the project would “decimate our city capital, basically.” [Tomaszewski made this statement is at 1:12:46 in the above-linked video.]
An intense and fast-moving storm on June 20, 2024 in Grand Junction caused a massive flood in the Paradise Hills subdivision, filling residents’ homes, back yards, basements and crawl spaces with muddy water, ruining their drywall, carpeting, cupboards and flooring, crashing down fences in yards and drowning backyard chickens. Senior meteorologist Tom Renwick of the National Weather Service in a story on Colorado Public Radio called the storm “incredible.” He said, “We couldn’t see more than maybe five feet out the door. It was remarkable.”
Remarkable, indeed.
One affected resident, Darla Green, attended a Paradise Hills HOA meeting right after the flood and estimated that 60-70 homes were involved and the damage they described cost well over a million dollars.
So far though, Paradise Hills residents have been left totally on their own to recover from what was essentially a man-made flood caused by totally inadequate drainage.
Did you buy a vehicle from a local dealership only to find out later you were defrauded in some way? Can’t afford an attorney to help?
Fortunately, there’s another, completely unpublicized way car buyers can get compensation for a fraudulent deal committed by a dealership.
Surety bonds
Colorado law requires every licensed motor vehicle dealer to carry a surety bond. The bond is meant to protect customers from fraudulent business practices.
A surety bond guarantees financial compensation to customers who incur monetary loss as a result of an auto dealer’s fraud, negligence or failure to comply with all of Colorado’s laws and ethical guidelines that govern the sale of vehicles. In order to get a dealer’s license from the state, all dealerships must purchase a surety bond to the amount of $50,000. Individual salespeople must also be bonded, to the amount of $15,000.
If you have evidence that a dealership committed fraud in your deal, for example if you found forged signatures on contracts or agreements, found extra charges were added were to your contract without your knowledge, the dealership submitted false information about your finances and the vehicle you were buying to lenders on your credit application (like inflating your gross salary or the length of time you’ve lived at your current residence, or claimed to lenders that your vehicle has fancier features like leather seats and a sunroof when it doesn’t), or if you were charged a higher interest rate than expected on your loan without your knowing, or if you were charged a higher price than the advertised price, or if the dealer told you had to buy additional products in order to buy the vehicle you wanted, or if the dealership submitted fake utility bills in your name to lenders, you can make a claim against the dealership’s surety bond to recoup the loss you incurred from the fraud.
Above is an excerpt from a 2023 lawsuit (pdf) brought by a Grand Junction couple against Red Rock Auto/Red Rock Hyundai describing how they discovered Red Rock Hyundai had fabricated XCel and AT&T bills in their names to include with the credit application for a loan on their vehicle. Neither one of the couple has an AT&T account.
How to file a claim against a dealership’s surety bond:
1) Identify the insurer that sold the dealer the bond**,
2) Contact the insurer and ask them to tell you their procedure for filing a claim,
3) Gather evidence of the fraud, for example the documents from your sale, your credit application, dates and times the fraud happened, the names of employees involved, copies of your signature if you think your signature was forged, a full description of what happened, the amount of money you are out because of the deal and the basis for the figure, and submit it all to the insurer with a letter saying “Dealership [fill in name]” defrauded you and you want to make a claim against the dealership’s surety bond.
The insurer will investigate your claim and pay you after they verify the facts of the case.
**How do you find out which insurer holds a dealership’s surety bond?
It’s public information that’s buried on the Auto Industry Division’s website. Here’s how to find it:
Scroll down to the blue “Quick Links” bar and click on it for the drop-down menu.
Click on the link for”Active Facility License Listings.”
In the bulleted sentence right below the page title, click on the blue link for “Active License Lookup.”
In the Active License Lookup web form, click the blue link in the third bulleted sentence that says “Click here to search for a facility instead of a person.”
In the facility search form, type the name of the dealership. [Hint: For the best result, use broad search criteria. For example, if you’re looking for Red Rock Nissan, just type “Red Rock.” If you’re looking for Grand Valley Auto, just type “Grand Valley.”]
Mug shot of Tiffany Momilani Miller, former Red Rock GMC financial manager, who was arrested for forgery, criminal impersonation and identity theft last year
In the search result box, click on the blue name of the dealership.
Scroll down to the dealership’s “License Bond Information.” You’ll see the name of the company that holds the bond for the dealership, and the bond number, which is like an insurance policy number.
Put the name of the bond issuing company into a Google search to get the company’s contact information. Call the company and ask them to tell you their process to file a claim against a dealership’s surety bond.
Above is the page on the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry website with the surety bond information for Red Rock Hyundai, naming the bond company and the bond number.
Surety bonds protect customers from financial losses they incur from doing business with an unscrupulous auto dealer. It’s free to file a claim against a dealer’s surety bond, so if you were defrauded in the course of buying a car, file a claim to get compensation for the fraudulent deal. The bond company will pay you and then seek reimbursement from the dealer.
Also…Report the fraud to law enforcement
Dealers that use fraudulent practices will continue doing so until they get caught and sent to jail, because they make a lot of money off such crimes.
dealership inside city limits, fill out the G.J.P.D.’s financial fraud packet, file it with the G.J.P.D., meet with a cop to explain how you were defrauded, and include a copy of your fraud packet with the documents you send to the surety bond company.
You can also report the crime to the Colorado state Attorney General as an automotive complaint and write reviews on sites like Google Reviews, Yelp, Cars.com, the Better Business Bureau, etc.
The more records you make of the crime and the more such crimes get reported, the better off everyone will be, and the easier it will be to make a solid case to the surety bond provider so you can get your money back. And it’s free to do all of this, except for the time it takes to do it.
Note that all of the crimes in the following video have been committed locally by a notorious auto dealer that has five stores in Grand Junction, so it pays to know how to make a claim against a dealer’s surety bond to get compensation for a financial rip off:
The stakes couldn’t be higher for the entire country, as Trump supporters have created comprehensive plan to curtail American freedoms, impose Christian ideals on all citizens and end human and civil rights as we’ve known them in America if Trump re-takes the presidency in the November general election.
Tractor Supply Company, a farm, ranch and feed company which previously had touted its efforts at diversity and inclusion, did an about-face June 27 after it issued a press release saying it will stop sponsoring events like gay pride festivals and voter registration drives, stop submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign, eliminate its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) roles, “retire” its DEI goals and will “withdraw our carbon emission goals and focus on our land and water conservation efforts.”
The company says they “work hard every day” to “represent the values of the communities and customers we serve. We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart.”
