A felony charge would have seriously impacted his ability to travel. This would have impacted his earning prospects both as an entrepreneur and as a researcher

A felony charge would have seriously impacted his ability to travel. This would have impacted his earning prospects both as an entrepreneur and as a researcher. For example travel to Canada: http://www.wikihow.com/Travel-to-Canada-with-a-Felony-Charge http://www.wikihow.com/Travel-to-Canada-with-a-Felony-Charge From that page, it can take up to a year and $1000 to apply for the visa for entry. The data sharing between the US and other governments means that you can't keep your convictions secret either. For example, Canada is hooked into the US databases, and they can and do retrieve information from them.