Custer County Sheriff Sergeant Pete Elliott used anonymous Facebook account to libel and possibly intimidate a key witness in triple murder trial

In March, an anonymous series of Facebook profiles started to comment on stories posted by the Tribune online that involved the Hanme Clark triple murder trial. These anonymous Facebook accounts almost always aggressively attacked one of the witnesses in the murder trial, and former Custer County deputy, Jason Salbato. Anytime a story about the murder trial was posted, an anonymous account with the name of “John Clough” made repeated libelous statements against Salbato that were extremely precise about information that was in the articles and seemed to come from inside the Custer County Sheriff’s Office.

The Facebook attacks escalated on May 7, when the Tribune posted a story about how the failure of Custer County Undersheriff Susan Barnes had led to the judge ruling that a search and seizure after the triple murder had been improper and had been done without a valid warrant. This meant that any evidence collected from that illegal search would not be admissible at trial.

Within hours of the story being published online, the John Clough Facebook account immediately began attacking Salbato in the comment sections of the post and claiming “The mistake was allowing a disgraced and fired former CCSO Sgt lie (sic) on the stand multiple times in an endless and ongoing attempt by multiple released and fired CCSO employees (and the Wet Mountain Tribune) to try and drag down people who are actually doing their jobs.”

I had been investigating exactly who had been using the anonymous Facebook account to attack Salbato in his role as a witness in the trial. With the attacks on May 7, it quickly became clear that the person behind the profile was a leader at the Custer County Sheriff’s Office, Sergeant Pete Elliott. In former pictures on Facebook, Custer County Chief of Staff Mike DeLaurentis clearly identified a picture of Pete Elliott asking, “Are you guys in Europe?” The account of John Clough answered “yessir.” When I recognized the libelous nature of the attacks and who was behind the Facebook account, an attempt was made to delete and block Elliott’s fake profile.

However, shortly after the comments were removed, another account controlled by Elliott, named “Jennifer Lewis,” continued the attacks against Salbato and added the Tribune. “Hedberg already deleting comments about his ongoing and endless bias. What a piece of crap loser biased reporter. He’s scared for the community to make real comments in his garbage articles. What a joke. If you have balls put John Clouhgs comment back up. He hates CCSO and seems infatuated with disgraced former employees, many of whom were fired for criminal charges, including the Sgt who testified and lied on the stand multiple times, resulting in this dismissal. Not one time EVER has biased Hedberg posted a single positive thing about CCSO. Just runs around flipping his ridiculous hair and doing shoddy journalism. If you believe his shitty articles you are functionally illiterate.”

This continued, “Are you going to mention that Sgt (Salbato) who testified was arrested on criminal charges and has in fact been charged with Brady violations and should not be believed in any court of law.” Further, “Literally Bradied for lying.”

Yet it was not just Sergeant Pete Elliott who took to Facebook to attack Salbato and the Tribune. The Partner of Undersheriff Barnes, and a former colleague of Sheriff Rich Smith, Brian Harris attacked, stating, “Oh give me a break Jordan, you are always spin the truth in your article to support your left wing agenda. We all know you hate the Sheriff’s Office and do whatever you can to slander them! Sheriff Smith and Undersheriff Barnes have committed EVERYTHING to the citizens of Custer County! It is the non law abiding citizens who through the biggest fit, including deputies and office personnel that have been fired and charged criminally for their actions.”

What makes these extrajudicial comments problematic is that none of the statements against Jason Salbato are true. Worse, the statements and attitude within the Sheriff’s Office seem to be an effort to keep Salbato from honestly testifying in the upcoming criminal trials of Hanme Clark and in a separate trial involving his partner, Nancy Medina-Kochis.

To understand the aggressive stance of Sergeant Elliott and possibly others in the Sheriff’s department, we have to go back to March of 2024. It was in March that Officer Salbato was falsely arrested and charged with failing to report a case of child abuse.

The case against Salbato was investigated by the now-disgraced District Attorney Linda Stanley, who had been asked by Sheriff Smith to look into it. The investigators Stanley tasked with the investigation seem to have knowingly changed facts in the arrest affidavit to make it appear that Salbato was not the investigating officer in the case. In fact, as the court case showed, Salbato had been the lead investigator in a report of possible child abuse, and he had done his job properly with the investigation. The judge dismissed the case against Salbato.

However, by that point, Salbato had been fired by the Sheriff’s Office, and his record falsely stated that he had been fired for cause.

Despite the case being dismissed, Sheriff Smith refused to change the record on Salbato’s employment, effectively ending Salbato’s highly-decorated career as an officer.

Salbato, a longtime resident of Custer County, sold his house and moved to Pueblo to avoid any interaction with the Sheriff’s Office, whom he feared were still trying to target him after the case against him was dismissed. The problem is that Salbato’s testimony in the triple murder trial was still needed, and he had often argued with the inexperienced Undersheriff Susan Barnes that they were not following the law in the days following the murder trial.

Sergeant Elliott and Brian Harris both knew, when they attacked Salbato online, that the case against him had been quickly dismissed and that Salbato had never received what is known as a Brady Letter. A Brady Letter is an official notification to a police officer that information about their past misconduct or credibility issues has been disclosed to a prosecutor. This triggers a legal requirement for the prosecutor to share this information with the defense in any criminal case where the officer is involved.

Salbato had never lied, he had never been found to have a history of misconduct, and he had never been criminally convicted of any crime. These were the facts when Sergeant Elliott and Brian Harris told their lies online. Salbato now does everything he can to avoid Custer County and the Sheriff’s Office. However, they repeatedly drove to his home in Pueblo to issue them subpoenas to testify, while Pete Elliott was anonymously libeling Salbato online.

On May 8, the Tribune emailed District Attorney Jeff Lindsey, Sheriff Rich Smith, and Pete Elliott about Sergeant Elliott’s and Brian Harris’s comments online, asking for comment. On May 12, Sheriff Smith wrote the following statement: “At this stage in the trial preparation, all media statements need to come solely from the District Attorney. We are very grateful for the hard work that the DA and his team are putting in on this important case since day 1 when he came into office. I am also grateful for the work that the members of the Custer County Sheriff’s Office have put in to investigate this crime especially through the transition from one District Attorney to the next. I have initiated an investigation into recent comments by members of the CCSO on social media. I also sent a copy of our current social media policy to the county attorney to review for opportunities for improvement.”

Despite Sheriff Smith’s pledge to investigate, a Colorado Open Records Request made by the Tribune showed that no investigation was completed by the Sheriff’s Office. The only thing that took place was that a mandatory online social media class had to be taken by all staff members. Records showed that Pete Elliott had completed the class this summer.

There is no record that Sergeant Elliott was reprimanded for his actions, and no indication that his attitude towards Salbato changed in any way after the lies by Elliott were uncovered by the Tribune. Salbato’s testimony is still expected in the two trials that will take place next spring.

– Jordan Hedberg