Innocent Man Released from Prison after 41 Years

Amer Zada was convicted of a crime that he did not commit in 1979. After 41 years of incarceration, he has finally managed to get released on parole due to the compelling claim of innocence that his lawyers presented to the parole board. Now on the outside, Amer is faced with extreme poverty. His family has been trying to keep him afloat with providing groceries and transportation to his parole meetings, but now they are completely tapped out. As a condition of his parole, the NY State Department of Parole is forcing him to pay 6 months rent upfront and pay an excessive amount of money for programming that he must attend. Amer lives in a trailer home along the Canadian border and does not even have enough money to fill the fuel tank that would allow him to keep the heat on in his home.  Without meeting the conditions that the Department of Parole is imposing on him, he is likely to have to return to prison.