Amer Ahmad parlayed a Harvard MBA into work at a big Chicago financial firm, the statehouse in Ohio and finally city hall in Chicago. In 2011 Mayor Rahm Emanuel named Ahmad Chicago\u2019s revenue director and city comptroller.<\/p>\n
But what neither Ahmad nor the mayor knew at the time was that this financial whiz kid was about to be taken down by the FBI – a scandal that would be just the beginning of Ahmad\u2019s problems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In two years\u2019 time, Amer Ahmad had become a celebrated emissary of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.<\/p>\n
For the mayor\u2019s financial virtuoso, reform was about to be achieved in prison.<\/p>\n
In 2013, Ahmad quit; and two weeks later he was indicted in a $3 million bribery and money laundering scheme in Ohio, where he had worked as state deputy treasurer just before Emanuel personally tapped him for a top city spot. Ahmad pleaded guilty of steering Ohio government deals to a high school classmate for two years, a friend who then kicked back $500,000 to Ahmad.<\/p>\n
But just before sentencing, Ahmad flew to San Diego, made it into Mexico and then onward to his family\u2019s native Pakistan using falsified papers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all crashing down around me, and I made a terrible decision, one that even puzzles me to this day,” Ahmad told NBC Chicago investigative reporter Chuck Goudie.<\/p>\n
After an odyssey that would land him in a Pakistani prison, and then eventually behind bars in the U.S., for the first time, Amer Ahmad talked publicly with NBC Chicago about a past that he is working to keep there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is it a good idea to run to a third-world country and to, you know, find yourself incarcerated in a third-world prison for 17 months,\u201d said Ahmad. \u201cThat was a terrible idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terrible, and transformative, according to Amhad, who agreed to return to the U.S., where he spent the past decade here at Terminal Island federal prison in California; having sacrificed his fortune, family and freedom, but he said, not his future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a brutal 10 years\u2026\u201d he said. \u201cI spent a lot of time living in shame and guilt and about those decisions. But I\u2019ve come to a place of peace about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is now Ahmad\u2019s place of peace – Cleveland, Ohio. Not far from Canton, where he was born 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
After prison and a stint in a Youngstown halfway house, Ahmad answered an ad for a personal trainer here at Zero Doubt, which operates several workout, wellness and life coaching centers in metro Cleveland and also offers healthy prepared, delivered meals. <\/p>\n
With a training certificate secured after prison, Ahmad was interviewed by one of the company\u2019s founders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI go, \u2018Man – it\u2019s not like he killed anyone or whatever else.\u2019 But it looks like a dream hire and way more than a personal trainer. And he can help our business,” recalls Zero Doubt Club co-founder Eric Golubitsky.<\/p>\n
Ahmad was quickly hired and now is a company partner, working more on finances than fitness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re building is a redemption story, helping people, you know, take full accountability for where they are in their lives, no matter what it is,\u201d Golubitsky said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s they\u2019ve done something bad or they\u2019re just not happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I have doubts? I have zero. So sorry for the pun: I have Zero Doubt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ahmad\u2019s road to redemption is not without sizable potholes. His sister died while he was behind bars, and his family left him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have three children who live with their mother, who\u2019s my ex-wife. I haven\u2019t had contact with them in a long time,\u201d Ahmad told Goudie.<\/p>\n
And those who championed him, including his former boss, ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Ahmad said are never out of mind and owed an apology.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things I think about when I do get a chance to talk to the mayor one day is I want to apologize to him that I put him in a situation and his administration in the situation that they had to spend days and days and weeks and weeks and then months and months having to answer questions about me,\u201d Ahmad said. \u201cHe gave me an opportunity of a lifetime, and I betrayed his trust in that way, even though he entrusted me to be an important part of his senior team. And I\u2019m sorry about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rahm Emanuel on Thursday told NBC Chicago that he is glad Ahmad “now realizes it was wrong to deceive and wrong to let him down and others.” And the former Chicago mayor said, \u201cThere is always a place for redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n
After prison and a halfway house, Ahmad went on home confinement with his parents in Akron, Ohio, wearing an electronic bracelet that just came off in April, making his movement on the road to redemption much easier.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amer Ahmad parlayed a Harvard MBA into work at a big Chicago financial firm, the statehouse in Ohio…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":55721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,40983],"class_list":{"0":"post-55720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois","11":"tag-nbc-5-investigates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114832307926218190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}