A judge excoriated a Colorado county clerk for her crimes and lies before sentencing her Thursday to nine years behind bars for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race.

District Judge Matthew Barrett told former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters after earlier sparring with her for continuing to press discredited claims about rigged voting machines that she never took her job seriously.

I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. Youre as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen, Barrett told her in handing down the sentence. You are no hero. You abused your position and youre a charlatan.

Jurors found Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that persons identity.

The man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell , a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from former President Donald Trump .

At trial, prosecutors said Peters, a Republican, was seeking fame and became fixated on voting problems after becoming involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the presidential election results.

A one-time hero to election deniers, Peters has been unapologetic about what happened.

Before being sentenced, Peters insisted that everything she did to try to unroot what she believed was fraud was for the greater good.

Ive never done anything with malice to break the law. Ive only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County, she told the court.

When Peters tried to press on with claims no legal authority has corroborated about wireless devices and software that changed ballot images in voting machines she drew the judges exasperation, who pointed out that ballot recounts showed no discrepancies.

Ive let you go on enough about this, Judge Barrett said. The votes are the votes.