Long Island jeweler, 71, released from brutal Iranian prison after more than a year — but still banned from leaving the country
A Long Island jeweler held in captivity for over a year has been freed from a notorious Iranian prison known for torturing inmates, the US State Department announced Tuesday.
Kamran Hekmati, of Great Neck Estates, was detained by Iranian authorities in May 2025 while visiting family in Iran — and was accused of illegally traveling to Israel for his son’s bar mitzvah in 2012.
“We welcome Mr. Hekmati’s release from detention and continue to call on the Iranian regime to lift the exit ban so that he may return home,” the State Department told Radio Farda, Radio Free Europe’s Persian-language outlet.
US Rep. Tom Suozzi, whose district includes Great Neck Estates, called it “a wonderful first step.”
“His health is OK, but we need the Iranians to go the next step and let him come home,” Suozzi told Newsday.
Hekmati — a 71-year-old Jewish Iranian-American who runs a jewelry business in Manhattan’s Diamond District — is believed to have been released on Friday, but is still unable to leave Iran because of a travel ban.
Iranian passport holders are barred from visiting Israel, which has been locked in bitter conflict with the Islamic Republic ever since the 12-Day War in June 2025.
Following Hekmati’s arrest by Iranian authorities in July 2025, Tehran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced the American to four years in prison for his trip to Israel.
His sentence was later reduced to two years after the statute was amended.
Hekmati spent over a year of his sentence imprisoned in Iran’s Evin Prison, a harsh facility known for excessive crackdowns, harsh beatings and other harrowing uses of unlawful force against prisoners, according to Amnesty International.
Reza Valizadeh, an Iranian-American journalist who has been held in Evin since September 2024 in connection with his work for Radio Farda, was also wrongly detained in May 2025.
A voice recording made by Valizadeh, 49, inside the prison has raised alarms about the treatment of the hostages.
Valizadeh described “physical pressure and mental torture” he and several other detained Americans are enduring in a the recording obtained by CBS News in June, adding that they are “suffering from various diseases and are deprived of real medical services.”
Advocates claim Hekmati’s sentence lies in a legal gray area because of Iran’s 10-year look-back window on the Israeli travel ban — a law enacted after he visited the Jewish state, according to Newsday.
A Persian Jew, the jeweler immigrated to the US from Iran roughly 14 years ago. But the Long Islander always retained a love for his homeland — and never cut ties with it.
Even as Hekmati built a new American life — running a business in New York City’s Diamond District, while thriving in Long Island’s large Persian Jewish community — he regularly returned to Iran for sometimes months-long vacations and family trips, according to his family.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
