RELEASED AT LAST: Marc Fogel's back story after 3+ years in a Russian prison for minor offense
Repost of a column from last August: Who is Marc Fogel? How did he end up in a Russian prison? Why did it take so long to get him out?
CNN, Tuesday, February 11 — The Trump administration secured the release of Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained for more than three years in Russia, in an “exchange,” the White House announced Tuesday.
The deal to release Fogel, who was designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department, was negotiated by President Donald Trump, Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff, “and the President’s advisers,” according to a statement from national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Originally posted August 6, 2024
Marc Fogel, a beloved 63-year-old American teacher, has been ignored by the U.S. for three years as he struggles for survival with multiple health issues in a Russian prison.
The reason: He brought medical marijuana with him on his last trip to Russia three years ago. Not unlike Brittany Griner, for whom the U.S. obtained a prisoner exchange after just 11 months.
Why hasn’t Fogel been given priority for a prisoner exchange?
Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan were able to come home to America last week in large part because their names and situations had become widely known in America and their arrests in Russia were widely considered to be outrageous and wrongful.
There was enormous pressure on the Biden Administration to bring them home.
Brittney Griner’s arrest and imprisonment in Russia quickly gained an even higher profile in America. She was freed in December 2022 after serving just 11 months of a 9-year prison sentence for possession of marijuana. It was one of the quickest prisoner exchange deals the U.S. has made with Russia.
Griner is one of the best women’s professional basketball players in the world. Gershkovich is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, one of the most widely known newspapers in the world. The WSJ used its power to push for his release aggressively on an ongoing basis, both in its newspaper and behind the scenes. Paul Whelan is an ex-marine who had been overlooked in a couple of earlier prisoner exchanges and who finally had worked his way up the priority list for exchange after his family became aggressive in getting his name and story widely known.
Who’s next on the priority list for exchange?
There are a half dozen or so Americans still imprisoned in Russia for offenses that seem either minor or manufactured.
But it has become clear that a huge factor in gaining freedom via prisoner exchange is having your name widely known, gaining broad public support for your cause, and having the U.S. government feel pressured to obtain your release. Griner and Gershkovich achieved this status almost immediately upon their arrest. Whalen had to wait a while but got there.
None of those still imprisoned, however, are anywhere close to this status.
A case probably can and should be made for several of them, but it is time for Marc Fogel to take his place in the spotlight.
Fogel, 63, is from Oakmont, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, and has worked as a schoolteacher for 38 years. He has spent 27 of these years teaching history in foreign countries to the children of U.S. diplomats, among others. He taught at the Anglo-American School in Moscow for nine years prior to his arrest. He loved his job, and his students loved him.
An infectious teaching style
Michael McFaul, former U. S. Ambassador to Russia, said his son had Fogel as a teacher and was captivated by his infectious teaching style. Fogel made his son excited about issues in a way he had never been before, McFaul said in a 2022 news article in The Washington Post by Manuel Roig-Franzia exploring Fogel’s life and arrest.
Fogel’s one ongoing problem in life had been his health. It all started when he was about 12, playing pee wee football. A serious back injury led to three unsuccessful spinal surgeries and fusions. Later, there were hip and knee surgeries. Nothing worked. The back pain grew out of control. Pain management became a full-time ritual – acupuncture, massages, and baths, often daily. It was the 1990s, and opioids were the rage for pain relief, but Fogel thought they were risky; he refused opioids.
A physician in the U.S. finally tried medical marijuana when Fogel and his wife, Jane, also a teacher, were in the U.S. during summer break in 2021. It worked — better than anything he had tried. The Fogels had been thinking about retirement and returning permanently to the U.S. but decided to give it one more year.
Unfortunately, Fogel then made the same mistake Brittany Griner would make the following year at the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. He hid a small amount of marijuana in his suitcase and tried to carry it through security. Not even a half ounce and he had his medical marijuana card with him. Surely, he would not get caught, or if he did, it would not be a big deal. He thought. Wrong.
With the rapidly deteriorating relations between Russia and the U.S. over Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Russian legal system appears to have set out to get him. He was arrested, accused of trying to smuggle marijuana into the country (it is illegal in Russia) to sell it to students, and convicted.
Fogel knew of people who had been arrested for possession of marijuana in Russia and let go with small fines. He asked for leniency. It didn’t work. He was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor.
A lovely, bubbly guy
Sergei, who worked with Fogel at the Anglo-American School, described him in an online comment chain as “a lovely, bubbly guy.”
Not anymore. His health has further deteriorated. He has no access to medical help for his pain. He is severely depressed. Yet even as he struggles, he teaches English to the Russian prisoners.
McFaul said recently that he worries about Fogel’s survival in a Russian hard-labor prison.
Fogel worries that he never will see his 95-year-old mother, Malphene, again. He has missed the college graduations of his two sons, Ethan and Sam.
The family is distressed that the U.S. government has failed to give Fogel’s case “wrongful imprisonment” status, which would move it up the ladder in the federal government as a priority for exchange.
As his sister, Anne, of Missoula, Montana, said recently, the family is frustrated and angry at the Federal government’s apparent disinterest in Marc’s situation. “We don't have the WNBA behind us and we don't have The Wall Street Journal behind us, so it's been very difficult for us to get our man out,” she said.
Particularly distressing is the fact that Griner’s case, quite similar to Fogel’s, quickly received “wrongful imprisonment” classification, which led to her return to the U.S. in an exchange within a year.
“That hurt,” Fogel wrote in a letter to his wife. “Teachers are at least as important as Bballers.”
Another online commenter – unnamed – noted the similarity to Griner’s case and lamented that Fogel “is not being treated the same by the United States.”
A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania members of Congress, including Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman, have called for the U.S. to negotiate for Fogel’s release.
Officially, the federal government has been silent about why “wrongful imprisonment” status has not been granted.
Update upon Fogel’s release this past week:
Wrongful imprisonment status appears to have been granted by the U.S. government sometime last year.
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Arnold- Who or what agency declared his wrongful imprisonment, and when?