Georgetown University has hired the former subject of a murder investigation as a full-time program associate for the university’s Prison and Justice Initiative.
Adnan Syed, the subject of the 2014 true-crime podcast “Serial,” reported to work Dec. 12, director of the initiative Marc M. Howard told The Washington Post. The programs educate and train imprisoned and formerly imprisoned people. (RELATED: Prosecutors Drop All Charges Against Man Who Spent 2 Decades In Prison, Became Celebrity With Podcast)
Adnan Syed, the subject of the podcast “Serial,” has joined @georgetownpji to support and advocate for others in the criminal legal system. https://t.co/p7YQHCwHne
— Georgetown University (@Georgetown) December 21, 2022
Syed, 41, will provide research and support for an undergraduate class called “Making an Exoneree,” The Washington Post reported. Students will review convictions and create documentaries about the cases with the goal of freeing innocent people.
“To go from prison to being a Georgetown student and then to actually be on campus on a pathway to work for Georgetown at the Prisons and Justice Initiative, it’s a full circle moment,” Syed said in a statement through Georgetown, The Washington Post reported. He said the program changed his life as well as his family’s life. “Hopefully I can have the same kind of impact on others.”
Syed was convicted in the killing of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee, who was found dead by strangulation in Baltimore’s Leakin Park in 1999. The murder was made known by the true-crime podcast “Serial” in 2014. Syed was freed in September after prosecutors dropped the case and a judge subsequently vacated his conviction as a result of deficiencies in how prosecutors had provided evidence to defense attorneys
Lee’s family attorney, Steve Kelly, said that he is “appalled that Mr. Syed has been deemed an ‘exoneree’ based on a deeply flawed process in which his victim’s family had no voice and at which no evidence of actual innocence was presented,” The Washington Post reported.