Tag: Crime

Tina Peters falsely implies on Joe Oltmann show that the Mesa County D.A. murdered the brothers of two witnesses against her

This article was authored by Erik Maulbetsch and originally appeared 2/2/23 in the Colorado Times Recorder.

Tina Peters’ mugshot from her arrest on 3/9/2022

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters took her conspiracy promotion to a new level this week when she implied that law enforcement murdered two family members of her former staff members in order to compel them to testify against her.

Appearing on Joe Oltmann’s far-right podcast, Peters falsely stated that the brothers of her former deputy Belinda Knisley and staffer Sandra Brown were both killed in separate unsolved hit-and-run accidents prior to the Mesa District Attorney offering them plea deals in exchange for their testimony.

Shake up at Red Rock

Brantley Reade (far left end of check)

As of today, Brantley Reade, Platform Manager for Red Rock Nissan, is no longer with the Red Rock Auto Group. He was formerly the designated person to call if you had been victimized by a deal at Red Rock’s Nissan or Kia dealerships.

So now, if you were a victim of a deal at a Red Rock dealership in which your digital signature was added to a contract without your being able to first see and expressly approve or reject any charges added to it (like extended warranties, maintenance agreements, protective coatings, key fob insurance, GAP insurance or other items), or if you found your signatures have been forged on any documents from your deal, or if your gross income, monthly housing payment, description of your vehicle or any other information was misrepresented to your lender on your loan application and Red Rock got you into a loan too big for you to handle, contact Red Rock owner Bryan Knight at (801) 792-3711 or email him at bryank@tdauto.com to make an appointment to discuss your situation and give him a chance to make it right.

Another Red Rock customer discovers unapproved charges & signatures that aren’t hers on her contracts

Credit application with Sonja Bartlowe’s real signature on it in three places. Her $3,500 gross salary type is marked “weekly,” “bi-weekly,” “monthly” AND “annually.”  The application says at the top, “Incomplete applications will not be processed,” but  none of the boxes below that are checked to indicate whether she is applying for an individual, joint or business loan.

Sonja Bartlowe is a single mom with two little girls and no child support who worked as a branch manager for a home care provider. Last May she traded in a vehicle and bought a 2016 Nissan Titan pickup truck priced at $39,000 from Red Rock Nissan, at least that’s what it was priced online.

Little did she know what she was in for.

Another Red Rock customer reports signatures on sale documents are not her own

Katelyn Slocum’s real signature. “I always sign my full name,” Katelyn says.

The signature that appears on all of Katelyn Slocum’s documents in her vehicle deal except one. Katelyn says this is not her signature.

Katelyn Slocum is a Certified Nursing Assistant with two small kids who works as an in-home hospice care provider for HopeWest. She uses her own car to get to her patients’ homes, and at the end of 2021, she decided she needed a more efficient car. She ended up at Red Rock Nissan, where she traded in a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee with almost 100,000 miles on it for a 2019 Subaru WRX with about 17,500 miles on it.

The transaction happened late on a Monday. Katelyn said, “It was a super-rushed purchase because it was past closing time, as it took awhile to get me approved for the loan amount.”

After hearing about other people whose names were forged by Red Rock and all the other problems people had had with their purchases, she was prompted to more closely examine her documents for the purchase of her vehicle, and on December 22, 2022 she took another good look.

Red Rock’s forgery problem

Jesus Acevedo’s signature next to the signature a Red Rock Hyundai employee forged on a contract in his name that would have added a $10,000 extended warranty to his contract, had he not caught the forgery while at his credit union to arrange financing.

People have sent information to AnneLandmanBlog that indicates customers of Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships have had their signatures forged on documents, and that such forgeries have likely been a problem at these dealerships for some time.

Another former Red Rock employee gives more information about how the dealerships defrauded customers, banks, lenders

Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction

Note: I am re-posting this article from last December, now that a second former Red Rock dealership financial manager, Matthew Morris, has been charged with criminal impersonation, forgery and identity theft. This article contains information from a former Red Rock financial manager about how Red Rock allegedly (and routinely) defrauded customers as well as lenders (banks and credit unions). The article got little notice at the time I posted it, but it’s even more relevant now that criminal charges have been brought against a second Red Rock employee, who has implicated upper management in these activities..

Yet another former employee of a Red Rock auto dealership has contacted AnneLandmanBlog wanting to unload about what they experienced while working for Red Rock, and wanting others to know how business is done at these dealerships. This person has more detailed knowledge about financing of vehicle deals. Their name is withheld at their request. I asked this person follow-up questions based on information provided by a previous Red Rock employee who came forward and told about the illegal acts allegedly taking place at the dealerships, like falsifying customers’ financial information to lenders, misuse of digital signatures, forging of signatures, and more. This new person has even more detailed insight into these dealerships, the things they do to customers and banks, and how and why Red Rock dealerships operate so differently from other dealerships  in town and around the country.

Customers fleeced out of thousands by Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships

Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction

People who patronized Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships are warning others shopping for vehicles locally that the dealerships used shady techniques to cheat them, or attempt to cheat them, out of thousands of dollars without their knowing.

Tina Peters on Lindell TV: “They tried to frame me with ballot stuffing [in 2019],” “Why aren’t they arresting the REAL felons: Jena Griswold, the A.G., Rubinstein, Judge Barrett, the Commissioners?”

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters gave an unhinged interview September 1 on LindellTV.com in which she claimed she is still a candidate even though she lost her primary election for Secretary of State by a wide margin over two months ago, and lost a second time by the same margin in a recount that cost over a quarter of a million dollars raised through donations from people who continue to believe her wild and completely unproven claims of election fraud.

Peters claims she hasn’t broken any laws and says that letting someone into the secure area of the Elections Department to make copies of voting machine hard drives was not a security breach because “I can have anybody I want in there.”

Knisely flips, agrees to testify against Tina Peters and others

Tina Peters (L), and Belinda Knisely (R)

In a major development in the case against indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, former Deputy County Clerk Belinda Knisley reached a plea deal in which she flipped on Peters, plead guilty to reduced charges and agreed to testify against Peters in court, according to reports today in the Daily Sentinel, the Colorado Sun, Colorado Public Radio, Denver 9News and other news outlets.

Felony charges dropped, no prison time

Knisely had faced three counts of attempting to influence a public servant (class 4 felonies), one count of conspiracy to attempt to influence a public servant (a class 5 felony), and two misdemeanor charges of violation of duty and failing to comply with the Secretary of State. Before the deal, Knisley faced up to 21 years in prison and $2 million in fines.

Lauren Boebert votes against bill to reauthorize U.S. to combat international human sex trafficking

House Rep. Lauren Boebert (L), with her former campaign manager, Sherronna Bishop.

On July 26, 2022 Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert voted against the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2022 HR 6552, which continues funding the Department of State and Department of Justice to combat human sex trafficking internationally through fiscal year 2026.

The law has been in place since 2020.

The bill sailed through the House on a vote of 401 to 20. The 20 who voted against it were all Republicans and included Ken Buck of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Louis Gohmert (R-TX).

In new video, Tina Peters assails Judge Matthew Barrett, who oversees her criminal case, calling him “malicious,” “partisan” and saying his “goal is to incarcerate an innocent woman.”


In her latest unhinged Facebook video made around 9:30 p.m. last night (Thursday, July 21) after turning herself in at the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department Tina Peters calls Mesa County Court Judge Matthew Barrett, the judge in her criminal case, “partisan” and “malicious,” and says “his goal is to incarcerate an innocent woman.” She accuses him of “legislating from the bench.”

Barrett was the judge who kept her out of jail last week after her unauthorized trip to speak in Las Vegas on July 12. She had traveled to Nevada without Court permission, and the judge had also issued a “no travel” order for her the same day. In spite of this, the judge was lenient with her and gave her the benefit of the doubt that it could have been her attorney’s fault for not informing her of the no-travel order.

State of CO investigating Boebert’s 2020 mileage reimbursements & payment of tax liens on Shooters Grill

Lauren Boebert, shown at upper left in a 2019 Facebook post, holding the same flag flown by right wing extremists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021

The New York Times is reporting that the State of Colorado will investigate allegations of campaign finance fraud by CO House Rep. Lauren Boebert involving her excessive 2020 mileage reimbursements and subsequent payoff of multiple outstanding tax liens on her restaurant, Shooters Grill, in Rifle, CO.

In 2020, then-candidate Rep. Boebert reimbursed herself from her campaign fund for over $30,000 worth of mileage that she claimed to have traveled between April and November of 2020, during the pandemic, and then appeared to have used the funds to pay off tax liens against her Rifle, CO restaurant. The number of miles she claims to have driven was enough to circumnavigate the globe 1.5 times.

New info in 18-page indictment against Peters and Knisely

Mug shots of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters (L) and Chief Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisely (R): Partners in crime. (Photo: YouTube)

If you haven’t had time yet to read the entire 18-page indictment of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters (pdf) filed March 8 that led to her arrest on seven felonies and three misdemeanors, probably the newest and most interesting additional information in it is about the infamous “Gerald Wood,” who we all thought was the unauthorized person Peters smuggled into the secure room where the election equipment is kept.

Turns out he wasn’t.

Car singled out for vandalism in Clifton Dollar Tree parking lot

A friend drove a car belonging to her now legally-blind housemate to Dollar Tree in Clifton, bringing her 90+ year old mother, who uses a walker, for a short shopping trip. It was late morning on Wednesday, March 31, and they parked in a handicapped spot in front of the store. They were in the store less than an hour, and when they came out, they found someone had vandalized their car with black spray paint.

No other cars in the parking lot were targeted.

W. slope Republicans promote domestic extremist lies

Post from Janet Rowland’s campaign Facebook page, August 14, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory (pdf) 1/27, warning of a heightened risk of violence by domestic extremist groups across the country who have been emboldened by the insurrection on the Capitol on January 6th.

The Advisory says,

  • “…some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.”

The Advisory says domestic violence extremists (DVEs) are

  • “motivated by a range of issues, including anger over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, and … opposition to immigration…” 

The bulletin further states,

• Threats of violence against critical infrastructure…increased in 2020 with violent extremists citing misinformation and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 for their actions.”

Local elected officials promote this extremist ideology

Boebert reimburses herself over $30k for mileage in 2020 — enough to circumnavigate the globe 1.5 times

Colorado Pols examined District 3 Congresswoman-elect Lauren Boebert’s campaign expenditures and discovered Ms. Boebert reimbursed herself a total of $30,177 in mileage expense from her campaign donations in 2020. She reimbursed herself about $22,000 of that in one lump on 11/11/2020.

For the sake of comparison, Colorado Pols compared Boebert’s mileage reimbursements with those of outgoing CD-3 Congressman Scott Tipton’s claimed mileage expenses over the entire time he served in Congress, and found Tipton reimbursed himself a total of $12,255 from his campaign — over the entire last TEN YEARS he held the office.

March planned to draw attention to police murder of Fruita man, Gage Lorentz

Gage Lorentz was murdered las March 21 by a Carlsbad Caverns National Park Ranger who shot him after pulling him over for going too fast on a dirt road. Lorentz was unarmed and unintoxicated at the time. No charges have been brought in the case.

A peaceful march will be held Saturday, October 17, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. at Stoker Stadium to demand justice for Gage Lorentz, a 26 year old Fruita man who was shot and killed March 21 by a Carlsbad Caverns National Park National Park Ranger after the ranger pulled him over for speeding on a dirt road. 

Lorentz was unarmed and had no drugs or alcohol in his system at the time he was pulled over.

Lorentz was driving home from Pecos, Texas, where he worked on drilling rigs, to see his family in Fruita when he took a short detour to meet a friend in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. While in the Park, Ranger Robert Mitchell pulled Lorentz over for speeding on a dirt road near the Rattlesnake Springs area of the park, a type of traffic stop that typically results in a warning or a ticket.

Body cam video shows Lorentz, clearly nervous, complying with the officer’s orders to get out of his truck and keep his hands visible, but he refused the officer’s demand to turn around and put his back to the officer. Mitchell started a scuffle with Lorentz and ended up shooting and killing Lorentz. No one has been charged in Lorentz’s murder.