MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has freed Marc Fogel, a U.S. schoolteacher and former employee of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, who had been serving a 14-year sentence for drug smuggling after being caught in possession of a small amount of marijuana.
The State Department had designated him late last year as “wrongfully detained” by Russia, committing Washington to try to negotiate his release.
At least 10 other Americans remain behind bars in Russia. Here are the most prominent cases.
STEPHEN JAMES HUBBARD
Hubbard, who turns 73 on Thursday, was sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison in October after being convicted in a closed court in Moscow of serving as a mercenary for Ukraine. Russian state media said he pleaded guilty.
An English teacher who had previously lived in Japan and Cyprus, Hubbard had been living in the Ukrainian town of Izium and was arrested after Russian forces took control of the city in 2022. His relatives rejected claims that Hubbard served for Ukraine, pointing to his advanced age. He was designated in January as wrongfully detained.
KSENIA KARELINA
A dual Russian-American citizen, Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in prison last August after a Russian court found her guilty of treason for donating just over $50 to a New York-based charity supporting Ukraine. The U.S. says she is wrongfully detained.
The Los Angeles spa worker was arrested in February 2024 while visiting family in Yekaterinburg. After discovering the charity donation on her phone, the FSB security service accused her of collecting funds for the benefit of the Ukrainian army.
Her lawyer has said she pleaded guilty in the hope of getting a lighter sentence, and that he would work towards securing her release in a future prisoner exchange.
ROBERT GILMAN
Gilman received a sentence of seven years and one month last October. An ex-Marine, he was found guilty by a Russian court of assaulting a prison officer and a state investigator at a penal colony in Voronezh, south of the Russian capital.
Gilman was already in prison at the time of the offence, serving a 3-1/2-year sentence for attacking a police officer while drunk, a charge he was convicted of in October 2022.
GORDON BLACK
An active duty U.S. staff sergeant based in South Korea, Black was detained last May in Russia’s Far East on suspicion of stealing money from his Russian girlfriend.
A court in June found Black guilty of stealing 10,000 roubles ($104) from the woman and threatening to kill her, sentencing him to three years and nine months in prison. He later lost an appeal hearing.
DANIEL JOSEPH SCHNEIDER
Schneider was sentenced to six years in prison in September by a court in the Kaliningrad region for kidnapping his own son, after he tried to leave Russia with the four-year-old without permission from the boy’s mother.
Schneider was detained near Poland by Russia’s border service while trying to cross the border in a forest swamp, the court said.
JOSEPH TATER
Tater was sentenced to 15 days in jail last August for “petty hooliganism” after he was alleged to have abused staff at a Moscow hotel, which he denied. Russian news agencies say he is also being investigated on a more serious charge of assaulting a police officer, which carries up to five years in prison.
A court in September denied his appeal to be released from pre-trial detention.
MICHAEL TRAVIS LEAKE
A musician and former U.S. paratrooper, Leake was sentenced to 13 years in prison last July for drug smuggling.
It was not clear how Leake pleaded to the charges, filed following his arrest in June 2023.
ROBERT ROMANOV WOODLAND
A U.S. citizen adopted from Russia as a child, Woodland had moved back to Russia and was working as an English teacher when he was arrested on charges of attempting to sell drugs.
He was sentenced on July 4 last year to 12-1/2 years in prison. His lawyer said Woodland had partially admitted guilt.
EUGENE SPECTOR
Currently serving a 3-1/2-year sentence for bribery, Spector, who was born in Russia and then moved to the U.S., was charged last August with espionage.
Before his arrest in 2021, he served as chairman of the board of Medpolymerprom Group, a company specialising in cancer-curing drugs, state media said. Spector had pleaded guilty to helping bribe an assistant to an ex-Russian deputy prime minister. It was not clear how he pleaded to the espionage charge.
DAVID BARNES
Barnes was sentenced by a Russian court in February 2024 to 21 years on charges of abusing his two sons in the United States. He had been involved in a custody dispute with his Russian ex-wife.
The allegations had previously been investigated in Texas, where authorities found no grounds to charge him.
(Reporting by Felix Light, Lucy Papachristou and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Michael Perry)
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