A Denton County jury sentenced Zul Mohamed to four years in prison after he admitted trying to steal his 2020 Carrollton mayoral election using fraudulent mail-in ballots.
The four-year-old voter fraud case involved a scheme cooked up by Mohamed to submit forged ballot-by-mail applications and direct the ballots to a commercial mailbox he leased using fake IDs.
Wednesday’s sentencing decision followed a three-day jury trial to assess punishment, which could have ranged from two to 20 years in prison or probation.
County officials wanted a penalty strong enough to deter future would-be fraudsters.
During the trial, defense attorney Kyle Therrian argued that Mohamed is mentally ill and should receive probation, so he’d be more likely to receive treatment for his delusional disorder.
“Nobody’s here to sell an excuse,” Therrian told the jury during closing arguments. “I don’t think we send people like Zul Mohamed to prison… It serves all of us for him to serve probation.”
Denton County Assistant District Attorney Jesse Davis told jurors Mohamed pleaded guilty “as a strategy” and had not shown remorse.
“This is a story about how the good people of Denton County stopped Zul Mohamed from stealing an election,” the prosecutor said, adding that it was the jury’s job to make sure Mohamed paid for his crimes.
Mohamed pleaded guilty on Monday to 109 counts of mail-ballot fraud, although at one point he unexpectedly declared he wanted the jury to decide his guilt or innocence.
The charges included 84 counts of submitting fraudulent mail ballot applications and 25 counts of possessing mail ballots or carrier envelopes without the voter’s knowledge or request.
On Tuesday, prosecutors presented witnesses and evidence documenting Mohamed’s scheme to illegally request and receive other voters’ ballots in order to cast fraudulent votes for himself.
Ahead of the November 2020 election, Mohamed submitted dozens of fraudulent mail-ballot applications to the Denton County Elections Office, using the information of actual registered voters and forging their signatures.
Elections Administrator Frank Phillips testified Tuesday that a temporary worker had noticed the suspiciously similar applications and raised the alarm. All the forms had similar handwriting and the same typed-in ballot-return address—which Phillips said a quick online search revealed was a commercial mailbox store in Lewisville.
Phillips said he immediately alerted local and state authorities, who began investigating.
He told prosecutors that 84 votes—the number of mail ballots Mohamed was charged with fraudulently requesting—can “absolutely” change the outcome of local elections.
Phillips said it’s “infuriating” when someone tries to subvert the electoral process—even more so when it’s a candidate for elected office.
“It’s making a mockery of the system he wants to be in charge of,” he said.
Denton County Sheriff’s officers then testified about their investigation and described for jurors the sting operation used to catch Mohamed “red-handed” with a box of the ballots he’d requested with forged applications.
Capt. Ed Barrett, head of the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division, stated that this was the first voter fraud case he’d worked during his 38 years in law enforcement in Denton County.
Barrett said his team initially contacted voters who had submitted a mail-ballot application prior to the Elections Office receiving a second application with their names.
The voters all confirmed that the applications listing the mailbox store address were fake.
When investigators found that the name on the mailbox lease was also fake, they came up with a plan to identify the perpetrator by placing a tracker in a box of ballots, staking out the store, and waiting for him to show up.
The Elections Office created specially marked ballot packets for 25 of the voters named in the forged applications.
An investigator went undercover inside the store, posing as an employee until the mailbox renter showed up to claim the ballots.
After three days, a man later identified as Mohamed came to retrieve the ballots, which were handed over in the tagged box.
Surveillance officers outside the store recorded video of the transaction then followed the car to a house in Carrollton and obtained a search warrant for the premises.
Inside the house, officers found Mohamed, the box of Denton County ballot packets—with one already opened and a pair of latex gloves nearby—and the fake IDs used to lease the Lewisville mailbox.
Officers also discovered stacks of ballot applications addressed to Dallas County Elections, plus a lease to a second commercial mailbox in Plano. That document also contained false information and a fake notary stamp.
Carrollton is located in three different counties: Denton, Dallas, and Collin.
Davis noted that none of Mohamed’s fraudulent ballots got cast in Denton County, “but we don’t know about Dallas County.”
On Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, the defense presented its witnesses.
Dr. Kristi Compton, a forensic psychologist who had evaluated Mohamed’s mental health, was called as an expert witness.
Compton testified that Mohamed suffers from delusional disorder, with grandiose and persecutory ideas.
She said Mohamed knew right from wrong, but his delusion that he has “special” gifts and is “destined” to serve in public office led him to believe that stealing votes was justified.
“I’ve never seen someone with delusional disorder seek treatment voluntarily,” she added.
Therrian also called the supervisor of Denton County’s Probation office and several character witnesses.
Before deliberations began Wednesday afternoon, Judge LeeAnn Breading instructed the jury that all sentences would run concurrently.
Because Mohamed committed multiple offenses in a single election, the offenses were enhanced to third- and second-degree felonies, with penalties of 2-10 and 2-20 years in prison.
Jurors promptly returned with a sentence of four years in prison for the higher-level ballot possession charges and 10 years’ probation for the ballot application charges.
Presiding juror Shannon Napier told Texas Scorecard that after hearing Dr. Compton’s testimony about her psychological evaluation of Mohamed, “it became quite obvious that he has some kind of mental illness.”
She said the jurors agreed a combination of prison time and probation was needed to set a precedent as well as to force Mohamed to get help for his mental health issues.
Napier added that the voter fraud trial has left her more confident in Denton County elections.
“Just listening to the elections administrator describe the process, I have way more confidence,” she said.
Mohamed, who had been out on bond while awaiting trial, was taken into custody.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Friday.
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