Pennsylvania man cleared after 43 years in prison for murder denied bail during deportation fight

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania man who spent 43 years in prison before his murder conviction was overturned — only to be taken straight into immigration custody — was denied bail Tuesday while he fights deportation.

Subramanyam Vedam, 64, will remain in custody while he appeals a 1999 deportation order. The Board of Immigration Appeals agreed this month to hear his appeal based on what it called exceptional circumstances.

The Trump administration had initially pursued a quick deportation and moved Vedam to a detention center in Louisiana last fall, before two separate courts intervened.

Vedam's lawyer argued Tuesday that he would have likely been spared deportation and become a citizen if not for the murder case, given immigration laws in place at the time. Vedam would have left prison on a drug charge by 1992, lawyer Ava Benach said.

“It was delivery of LSD on a very small scale. This is not importing tons of cocaine,” Benach said Tuesday. “He is not a danger to the community. We are talking about offenses that occurred over 40 years ago.”

In August, a Pennsylvania judge threw out Vedam’s murder conviction in the 1980 death of a college friend, based on ballistics evidence that prosecutors hadn’t disclosed during his two trials. Supporters listening in remotely to the bail hearing included a Centre County prosecutor and the mayor of State College, where Vedam's late father was a renowned professor at Penn State University, Benach said.

Immigration Judge Tamar Wilson, sitting in Elizabeth, New Jersey, said she believes detention to be mandatory given the felony drug conviction. Alternatively, she agreed with Department of Homeland Security officials who said he remains a safety risk.

“The fact he's been a ‘model prisoner’ does not suggest that out in the general public he's going to be safe,” Wilson said.

It's not yet clear whether Wilson or another judge will hear the merits of the deportation case. No hearings have yet been scheduled.

“Subu is nothing if not resilient, and we’re resolved to emulate the example he sets for us by focusing on the next step in his fight for freedom. We continue to believe his immigration case is strong and look forward to the day we can be together again,” said his sister, Saraswathi Vedam, calling him by a family nickname.

She planned to bring him home when he was released from state prison on Oct. 3, only to see him taken into federal immigration custody. Vedam had come to the U.S. legally from India when he was 9 months old, when his parents returned to State College.

“He was someone who’s suffered a profound injustice,” Benach told The Associated Press last year. “Those 43 years aren’t a blank slate. He lived a remarkable experience in prison.”

Vedam is being held at an 1,800-bed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.

“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said of the case last year.