The founder of Black Lives Matter in Memphis, Tennessee, has been sentenced to six years in prison for committing election fraud.
Pamela Moses complained it was the fault of elections officials that she wasn’t told when she signed up to vote in 2019 that a previous felony conviction meant she had been permanently banned from voting.
“This case is one about the disparity in sentencing and punishment — and one that shouldn’t have happened,” her attorney, Bede Anyanwu, told the Washington Post.
Anyanwu said Moses will be immediately appealing, adding, “It’s all very, very disturbing.”
“I did not falsify anything,” she claimed.
Fox13memphis.com reports: According to the D.A.’s office, Moses, 44, has 16 prior criminal convictions and committed the voting offense while on probation.
Criminal Court Judge W. Mark Ward said that if she completes programs in prison and maintains good behavior, he would consider placing her on probation after nine months.
On April 29, 2015, she pled guilty to tampering with evidence and forgery, both felonies, and misdemeanor counts of perjury, stalking, theft under $500 and escape. Moses was placed on probation for seven years.
Public records also show Moses was detained by police in 2016 and charged with inciting to riot. Those charges were dropped.
Moses was rendered infamous because of her felony convictions and lost her citizenship rights, including her right to vote.
She was permanently deemed ineligible to register and vote in Tennessee because of the tampering with evidence conviction.
Last November, proof at her trial showed that on Sept. 3, 2019, Moses filed a certificate of restoration and application for voter registration with the Shelby County Election Commission, falsely asserting that her sentence had expired and that she was eligible to register to vote. However, Moses was still serving her 2015 sentence on probation when she filed the restoration documents, the D.A.’s office said.
