Would a 5-year prison sentence totally ruin one's academic career? For committing a crime considered very severe in the U.S. and in some countries (hence the 5-year minimum sentence), but not as severe (but may still lead to imprisonment) in many other countries? He does not have any record of academic dishonesty or anything like that; in fact, he had a solid record of publications and was still building on it before he got arrested. Can he still publish papers that are taken seriously, and obtain academic positions, in the U.S. or in some other countries, once out of jail?

UPDATE: I only know what he pleaded guilty to according to news. It is not something noble like an "honest crime". I have confused conviction with indictment, so now I think the crime is most likely real and hardly disputable. I want to add that he is a first-time offender, so I don't know if his prison sentence can be converted to probation, and if that matters to whom may hire him in the future.

@xLeitix's comment:


  I cannot think of one crime which results in a five year sentence where I would hire that person.


Maybe the crime of failing to notify the town of L'Aquila of a 2009 earthquake that killed at least 309 people? Fortunately for those scientists, the initial court ruling was overturned about 2 years later.
A five year prison sentence would damage an academic career in at least two major ways.  The obvious way it would damage it is from the possible stain on a person's record.  In the U.S., at least, being a convicted felon can be very difficult to recover from, no matter what the crime, due to general societal prejudice.  Add to that the fact that most crimes indicate either dishonesty or being a threat to others, and you've got a serious problem.  It does, however, strongly depend on the crime.  For example, if the crime is an "honest crime" that derives from ones intellectual inclinations (e.g., the notorious example of Timothy Leary, the sad case of Aaron Swartz, or the youthful recklessness of Robert Morris) then it may be "forgiven" from an academic point of view.

The other, perhaps less obvious, source of career damage is from the interruption in ongoing work.  Typically, any working scientist has a number of simultaneous multi-year projects at different stages: preliminary work, proposal, execution, publication.  Each of these fuels the others, e.g., papers from more mature projects help support proposals for new projects, pieces of ongoing work in project execution include preliminary work that leads to new proposals, etc.  With any major career gap, this "pipeline" can empty, and there is often difficulty in restarting it.  This can be a significant problem even for academics who take family leave; a multi-year gap for prison would be much bigger to overcome.  Either, however, can be overcome with time and help from supportive colleagues.