Pamela Moses, a Memphis-based Black Lives Matter activist, has received a sentence of six years behind bars for illegally registering to vote in 2019.
The 44-year-old was sentenced Monday inside the Shelby County Criminal Court by Judge Mark Ward, the Daily Memphian reported Friday.
He sentenced her to six years and a day but explained that if she finished programs in prison and also “maintains good behavior,” he would consider putting her on probation following a nine month period.
The woman’s attorney said he filed a motion for another trial.
Moses founded the Black Lives Matter Memphis chapter and ran for mayor but lost the general election in October 2019, Fox 13 reported in November 2019.
Meanwhile, she has maintained her innocence, claiming she was unaware she was ineligible to vote and saying she believed her probation from a 2015 guilty plea had ended and she could begin restoring her voting rights.
“The guilty plea was for tampering with evidence, forgery and misdemeanor charges of perjury, stalking, theft under $500 and escape,” the Daily Memphian report continued:
She filed paperwork to have her voting rights restored in 2019. She said the Tennessee Department of Corrections told her that her probation had ended and gave her a certificate saying so, but then rescinded the certificate. The court said Moses was permanently stripped of her voting rights when she plead guilty to the tampering with evidence charge.
“Under the law, she also was rendered infamous because of her felony convictions and lost her rights of citizenship, including her right to vote. She was permanently deemed ineligible to register and vote in Tennessee because of the tampering with evidence conviction,” a press release from Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich’s office said Monday.
The news release also said Moses had 16 prior criminal convictions and “committed the voting offense while on probation.”
She remains in custody at the Shelby County Jail East, the report concluded.
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