The road to get here was long, taxing, and at times hopeless. Life, especially the decade-long recovery from this colossal derailment was an obstacle course. How did I even end up here? In the 1990s I left a post-war Iran and came to the US alone when I was 18 on the promise of the American dream and to have a shot at a better life. I tried my very best and in many ways excelled in academics, graduating from UC Berkeley with a double major and from Princeton with a Ph.D.

No family is simple, each has its challenges. So did mine. While in graduate school, I went back and forth to Iran to stand up for my mother, for her rights as a human being, for my family, for what was just.

After graduating in 2005, I got a job at a prestigious firm, McKinsey & Company in New York City.

By year-end in 2009, my American dream was within reach: I was a law-abiding citizen, immigrated and integrated into the US, championed the American way of life, achieved educational milestones, had a compelling job at a top firm, in a relationship with a woman I adored, did all I could to secure a path for my mother and our family.

But then on Jan 7th, 2010, I saw my world crash and crumble. I was arrested. Indicted. Held in maximum and high-security prisons. I was denied bail. Lost at trial. And the legal ordeal dragged on with me locked up in prison for nearly 2 years. Until Oct 24th, 2011 when I won my case on appeal. I was released from prison on Nov 2nd, 2011.

Federal district judge Paul A. Engelmayer was one supportive voice through the chaos. He presided at my resentencing on July 24th, 2012 to correct the record. In that session, Judge Engelmayer went out of his way to point out that the 22 months I had spent in prison were “far longer than any prison term I would have imposed”. He described me as “a loyal and loving son and brother, a devoted friend and honorable man, a kind man and fantastically hard-working and talented man, even brilliant, who has much to contribute and much that is productive to contribute to his community and his world.” Thank you Judge Engelmayer.

So, I won my case on appeal; how do I get my life back? The 10 years since my release from prison marked a long exhaustive path to recover from an ordeal so grave and so difficult to shake off; so tough to put into words. So many rejections: from hundreds of jobs I applied to, from 11 of 12 schools I applied to, for a place to live where checking the box on the application for background check would disqualify me, from credit card companies that saw me as not creditworthy, from banks that reserved their rights to not open an account, from some of my former friends, classmates, and colleagues to whom I was toxic. So many doors closed. So many hopeless dead ends. And then there were many others who stood by me: writing to defend me and keep my spirit alive, coming to prison, vouching for me, opening up opportunities for me, hearing me, doing all they could to keep me from drowning. I lost my only remaining grandparent – my family had kept my story from her but we lost her before I got a chance to tell her I was out, my mother suffered a debilitating brain stroke. The journey since 2010 has aged my heart and consumed my mind. I have greyed.

There is so much we do so well in this country. There is so much room for us to do better on criminal justice (more in my TED week video). I’ll continue to advocate for my cause where I can make a difference. I’ve spoken to law school students, bar associations, prosecutors, and ordinary citizens with the power to create change in our criminal justice system.

For my path, I knew I needed one break. And that break would lead to another. If I were relentlessly persistent and ready, I believed my chance would come.

Despite winning on appeal an insurmountable obstacle was the existence of a criminal record in my background pushing me into a resigned state across:

• A career path: job application & background checks that were impossible to pass and kept me out of the workforce with FBI and state law enforcement directories containing my conviction records, effectively making my candidacy an impossibility for many jobs, jobs for which I had spent many years of higher education preparing and training. For some I could not even sit to take the certification exams, let alone apply.
• Access to the financial system: exclusion from the banking and financial system; where for years opening and keeping open a bank account or credit card turned into a whirlwind; even when I succeed in opening an account I would often get that ominous letter informing me that my account was being closed based on the bank’s ‘standard audit’ of its customer’s risk profiles.
• Housing: rental applications for housing that were most often a hopeless pursuit: which landlord would choose a tenant with a criminal background and poor credit over others?
• Rights: cementing my status as a second-class citizen, where beyond the practical limitations above, I had lost the right to participate, to vote, be on a jury, and with a criminal background it was legal to discriminate against me.