| Marc Fogel | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Name: | Marc Hilliard Fogel | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 28 July 1961 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Butler, Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Citizenship: | United States | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Module: |
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Marc Hilliard Fogel is an American schoolteacher who was arrested in August 2021 by Russian authorities for trying to enter Russia with 0.6oz of medical marijuana. In June 2022, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.[1] [2] [3]
Fogel is from Pennsylvania, United States. He attended the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.[4] He has been a history teacher at international schools in Colombia, Malaysia, Oman, Mexico and Venezuela. He had lived and worked in Russia since 2012, teaching at the Anglo-American School of Moscow.[5]
In August 2021, Fogel entered Russia through customs at Sheremetyevo Airport when around half an ounce of medical marijuana was found in his luggage. The substance had been prescribed to him in the United States to treat chronic pain.[6]
In June 2022, Fogel was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 14 years in prison. In October 2022, he was transferred from a detention center in Moscow to a penal colony, where he will serve the remainder of his sentence.[7]
In May 2022, the US State Department designated basketball player Brittney Griner as being wrongfully detained, but did not do so for Fogel. Fogel's case has not generated nearly the public attention that Griner’s case garnered.[8] Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey has voiced his dissatisfaction with the Biden administration's handling of the case.[9]
In August 2022, a bipartisan group of United States senators lobbied for the State Department to designate Fogel as wrongfully detained.[10]
Fogel's family has called on Brittney Griner (who was imprisoned but released in a prisoner exchange in 2022) to speak out on his case.[11]
In 2022, following the Brittney Griner conversation, a petition was initiated on Change.org, calling for Fogel's freedom and urging the Biden administration to designate him as wrongfully detained. As of September 7, 2023, it had garnered 22,455 signatures out of its 25,000 signature goal.[12]
Fogel was not part of the 2024 Russian prisoner exchange, though according to an American official there were ongoing conversations about his release.[13] Fogel's family voiced their disappointment that Fogel had not been included in the exchange, implying his lack of notoriety to be the cause: "Marc has been unjustly detained for far too long and must be prioritized in any swap negotiations with Russia, regardless of his level of notoriety or celebrity."[14]
On August 1, 2024, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan described Fogel as wrongfully detained, the first time a U.S. official had done so.[15]