Pamela Moses, the founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Memphis, has been sentenced to prison for voter fraud, the New York Post reports.
Last Monday, Moses was ordered to spend six years and one day behind bars for registering to vote although her prior felony conviction in 2015 made her ineligible.
Announcing the sentence, Judge Michael Ward claimed that Moses deceived the probation department to secure her voting privileges.
“You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation,” Ward said.
Back in 2015, Moses pleaded guilty to “tampering with evidence and forgery, both felonies, and to misdemeanor charges of perjury, stalking, theft under $500, and escape.” After her guilty plea, she was placed on probation for seven years and deemed ineligible to vote in the state of Tennessee due to the tampering with evidence charge.
Throughout the ordeal, Moses believed that her voting rights had been restored and she began voting in 2019.
“I did not falsify anything,” she said at the hearing. All I did was try to get my rights to vote back the way the people at the election commission told me and the way the clerk did,” she said at the hearing.
Bede Anyanwu, Moses’ lawyer, said that they plan to appeal the sentencing.
“She believes the sentencing was beyond the evidence that was presented,” Anyanwu said.
