Memphis BLM founder convicted of voting illegally; sentenced to six years in prison

Pamela Moses, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Memphis, was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison after being charged for illegally voting six times after multiple felony convictions. 

Moses, who some outlets described as the founder of a Memphis BLM chapter, received her sentence on Jan. 26 after her November 2021 conviction for illegally registering to vote, The Epoch Times reported. 

She pleaded guilty in 2015 to felony charges of tampering with evidence and forgery. Moses also pled guilty to theft under $500, stalking, and perjury, which were misdemeanors. 

"You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation," Judge Mark Ward said in court during Moses' sentencing. "After you were convicted of a felony in 2015, you voted six times as a convicted felon."

"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 during her sentencing. 

She previously said that she had never actually voted and unknowingly registered to vote, according to the news outlet. Moses blamed election officials for not informing her of her ineligibility after her probation started. 

"I relied on the election commission because those are the people who were supposed to know what you're supposed to do," Moses told News Channel 3 in December. "And I found out that they didn't know."

Prosecutors argued that Moses did know 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."

A Memphis activist claimed that Moses' sentence was too harsh and her conviction was erroneous. 

"Elected officials have used incredible amounts of resources in a time when there's a backlog in this justice system unlike any we've seen before. They use resources to try and … convict this woman for trying to vote," executive director of the left-wing group Just City, Josh Spickler, said in a news conference, the Washington Examiner reported.