ELBERT COUNTY, Colo. — A former top Republican in the Colorado State House is one of two attorneys who held copies of the Elbert County voting system hard drives, according to newly unsealed court documents.
Former Republican House Minority Leader Joe Stengel filed an affidavit in the case between Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Republican Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, saying he held onto a metal box given to him by Schroeder's attorney, John Case.
Court documents describe the metal box as containing a copy of the voting system hard drive.
Griswold sued Schroeder after learning that he copied his county's voting system hard drive and refused to turn over the copies or provide a detailed explanation about who had access to the copies.
According to the court documents, Case was given a metal box on Jan. 22, containing one of the two copies of the voting system hard drive. On Jan. 25, Case hired Stengel, a real estate attorney, as his counsel and delivered the box containing the copied hard drive to Stengel.
Case received the metal box back from Stengel on May 4.
Stengel did not say in his affidavit if he knew what was inside the box. Two calls made to Stengel on Monday afternoon have not yet been returned.
The court documents also explain that a yellow seal closing the metal box was broken when it was returned. Case believes he must have broken the seal when he tried jamming the box under his seat when he delivered it to Stengel. The court documents explain that the sealed pouch containing the hard drive inside the box was not opened.
According to the court documents, Schroeder said that on or about Oct. 5, 2021, he delivered a copy of the hard drive to an Elbert County attorney named Ric Morgan.
Morgan submitted an affidavit explaining that Schroeder delivered a sealed red pouch to a letter box in his office. Morgan said that when he retrieved the pouch that a small plastic chip broke off. He taped the plastic chip back onto the pouch and placed the pouch in a locked storage cabinet in his office.
In court documents, Schroeder told the court that Morgan returned the pouch on Feb. 23.
A phone call on Monday afternoon to Morgan has also not yet been returned.
Schroeder also admitted to the court that he borrowed the forensic imaging device that he used from a person named Mark Cook. Schroeder is also supposed to provide the court text messages between himself, Cook and Shawn Smith, an election rigging conspiracy theorist who suggested the hanging of Griswold at a February event held at a Castle Rock church, which was hosted by FEC United, a conservative group in Colorado with a militia wing.
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