A Black Lives Matter organizer in Memphis was sentenced to prison after she was convicted for illegally registering to vote.
Pamela Moses, described by some outlets as the founder of a BLM chapter in Memphis, was sentenced to six years in prison last week after she was convicted in November 2021 for illegally registering to vote in Tennessee, according to prosecutors. Moses had felony convictions in 2015, making her ineligible to register to vote.
Judge Mark Ward, while handing down her prison sentence, accused her of making false statements to the probation department to register to vote.
“You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation,” Ward said in court last week. “After you were convicted of a felony in 2015, you voted six times as a convicted felon.”
Moses in 2015 pleaded guilty to felony charges of tampering with evidence and forgery. She also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of perjury, stalking, and theft under $500, according to local media.
“I did not falsify anything. 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,” Moses said at her sentencing hearing on Jan. 26.
A local activist in Memphis alleged that her conviction was erroneous, and her sentencing is too harsh for the crime she committed.
Moses previously said she never actually voted and only registered unknowingly. She faulted officials for not telling her about her ineligibility after she began probation on the 2015 charges.
However, prosecutors said during her trial that Moses knew that she was ineligible to vote.
“Even knowing that order denied her expiration of sentence, Pamela Moses submitted that form with her application for voter registration and signed an oath as to the accuracy of the information submitted,” prosecutors argued. “Pamela Moses knowingly made or consented to a false entry on her permanent registration.”