Since being released from jail in 2021 after spending nearly 24 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, Jon-Adrian Velazquez, has wasted no time. He has acted in a movie, playing himself, alongside Colman Domingo. He has been invited to advise the White House on criminal justice reform and become engaged to be married.

On September 30, the son of a retired 1199SEIU home care organizer, Maria Velazquez, was finally, formally, exonerated at the Manhattan Supreme Court, when a judge overturned his second-degree murder conviction. (Velazquez had previously been granted clemency in order to be released.)

“This isn’t a celebration,” he said outside the courthouse, adding, “This is an indictment of the system.” He wore a baseball cap bearing the words “End of an error.”

In 1998, Velazquez was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a retired New York police officer. He was sentenced to 25 years to life, despite the fact that he did not match the suspect description and had an alibi corroborated by phone records.