Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters is facing a second ethics complaint filed by activist Anne Landman.

The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission approved two new complaints for review in its Tuesday meeting, and while the complaints have not yet been made public, one is believed to be against Peters.

Peters’ spokesman has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Peters is already facing an ethics complaint, also filed by Landman in 2021, that alleged she accepted a personal gift of a plane ride from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in order to attend a cyber symposium last August, in which he touted unfounded claims about the 2020 election.

In that complaint, Peters, through counsel, denied any wrongdoing. 

“Ms. Peters firmly denies that she has in any way violated Colorado’s ethics requirements,” her counsel told the commission in a letter.

The new complaint, which Landman provided to Colorado Politics and which was first reported in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Wednesday, alleged Peters is operating a “criminal legal defense fund” in violation of Article 29 of the state Constitution, also known as Amendment 41.

Landman further alleged that, by operating that fund, Peters is violating the public trust for personal gain through her public office. 

The ethics commission has an advisory opinion on which public officials under the commission’s jurisdiction may solicit and accept funds for legal defenses in criminal action.

The opinion, issued in 2013, states that it is not in violation of Article XXIX of the Colorado Constitution for a public officer to establish a criminal legal defense fund and allow an administrator to solicit funds to defray legal costs.

However, the opinion says, neither the officer nor the administrator of such a fund may solicit from professional lobbyists or others doing business with the officer’s agency.

In addition, contributions to this fund, including the name of contributors, the relationship of the donor to the officer, and the amounts of donations and expenditures must be publicly disclosed, the opinion says.

It’s that lack of public disclosure that appears to be at issue in the most recent complaint.

Peters has not filed a campaign finance report since November, 2019, nor has she disclosed donors to her legal fund, which was established last year.

The complaint cited a 2021 Colorado Politics article that quoted Jane Feldman, the commission’s former executive director and an attorney, who said “donations must be publicly disclosed, and must be administered by someone not directly affiliated with the clerk.”

Feldman added: “In addition, no donations may be accepted if the donor is a lobbyist. The solicitation on her website contained none of those conditions, and therefore may cause violations of the gift ban.”

Peters also is facing a campaign finance complaint filed by Scott Beilfuss of Grand Junction over donations to her legal fund. That complaint is set for a hearing with the Office of Administrative Courts on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

The lack of reporting of donations and expenditures, which is contained in campaign finance reports, is at the heart of a lawsuit filed against Peters by the Attorney General’s Office on behalf of the state Election Division. 

Peters’ legal troubles stem from August 2021, when she was accused of helping leak sensitive election data, including voting system passwords and copies of the Dominion software used to manage elections, to an unauthorized individual. That information later showed up on a website tied to the alleged founder of Q-anon. The Secretary of State ordered Mesa County to replace its election equipment after it was determined its security could not be guaranteed.

The 2013 ethics commission opinion was issued after a request from the Department of State, which asked whether it would be permissible to set up a trust fund “to offset expenses the Secretary of State has incurred and may continue to incur in a pending criminal investigation.” The Secretary of State in 2013 was Scott Gessler, who is now representing Peters on the other ethics complaint and on other matters.