FORT WORTH, Texas _ Crystal Mason, 43, of Rendon, who was convicted in state court in March of illegal voting, was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison Thursday for violating the terms of her parole in a fraud case.
She was also given two years and two months of probation in the case.
Mason was found guilty in March of casting an illegal ballot for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race against Donald Trump and was sentenced to five years in prison.
A jury found that Mason cast that ballot while she was serving out her term of supervised release, the federal government's equivalent of parole from prison.
Mason has appealed her illegal voting conviction, but the federal government did not await the outcome of that appeal.
Mason's troubles began when she was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2012 after pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the federal government. She and her husband, who also pleaded guilty to fraud, ran a tax preparation business. The couple pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to prison for filing false income tax returns so they could inflate client refunds and recoup higher fees for their services.
Mason served more than three years in federal prison on that fraud sentence and still has 11 months remaining on her term of supervised release.
If Mason's appeal is eventually successful and her conviction is overturned by a higher court, no judge can refund the prison time she will spend after her term of supervised release is revoked, her attorneys said.
If the state appeal is not successful, Mason would also have to serve the state's sentence.
In June, her motion for a new trial in the illegal voting case was denied by State District Judge Ruben Gonzales, who issued the original sentence.
