An American teacher held by Russia for three and a half years for a minor medical cannabis infraction has been released and is on his way to the United States, the White House said Tuesday.
Marc Fogel, a 63-year-old Pennsylvania native, had been sentenced to 14 years in prison by Russia and was considered “wrongfully detained” by the United States.
“By tonight, Marc Fogel will be on American soil and reunited with his family and loved ones thanks to President Trump’s leadership,” national security adviser Mike Waltz said Tuesday in a statement.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would meet with Fogel at the White House when he arrives.
Told the news, Fogel’s mother, Malphine “Mafa” Fogel, 95, said, “Don’t tell Trump. He was never a Trump supporter. He will be.”
Fogel is on a plane with U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff that has left Russian airspace, Waltz said.
Fogel will travel home on a private plane of Witkoff’s that’s expected to touch down at Joint Base Andrews at about 9 p.m. EST, a White House official told NBC News.
He’s then expected meet with Trump in the Oval Office a short time later.
The release could advance Trump’s efforts in reaching a ceasefire in the three-year Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine, officials said.
“President Trump, Steve Witkoff and the President’s advisors negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine,” Waltz said in a statement.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the Russians gained by releasing Fogel.
Tuesday’s announcement brings an end to years of frustration voiced by Fogel’s family, who have been calling for the White House to secure his release.
Fogel had remained in Russian custody as U.S. authorities won freedom for other high-profile American detainees, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine Paul Whelan and WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Fogel’s mother said that the release of those Americans “really crushed him.”
“I worried if he’d ever get seen again,” she said Tuesday in Butler, Pennsylvania alongside family attorney Sasha Phillips, who has worked on his freedom pro bono.
His mother credited Trump for her son’s release. She met Trump before his July 13 rally in Butler when he was struck by gunfire, a man was killed, and two spectators were injured in what federal investigators said was an assassination attempt.
Malphine Fogel said Trump told her that if he won the election, “I’ll get him out.”
“He has been instrumental.”
A family statement expressed her thankfulness.
“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” it stated.
Fogel had been teaching in Russia before he was picked up by authorities at Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow, prosecuted and sentenced to 14 years for having about 17 grams of medical cannabis.
He’d been prescribed medical cannabis in the United States for back pain, but the substance was illegal in Russia.
Phillips said Russia’s justice system usually deals with such a case by meting out probation and a deferred sentence — which essentially amounts to no or relatively little time in custody. But the government, she alleged, wanted a pawn in its ongoing diplomatic salvos with the United States.
“They were looking for someone to detain, to hold hostage,” she said while standing alongside Fogel’s mother on Tuesday.
U.S. legislators praised the release.
“Great news for Mark and his family. Our delegation and both parties across administrations worked hard to bring him home,” U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., said in video statement.
“That’s what you should expect as an American, that your government will never leave Behind the hard work to bring him home. Welcome home, Marc.”
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., thanked the administration for its work to secure Fogel’s freedom.
“Marc Fogel’s return home is long overdue — and I know all of Pennsylvania, especially his family, will be welcoming him back with open arms,” Fetterman said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., said he was particularly happy for the school teacher’s elderly mother, who will finally get to see her son.
“I could not be happier that Marc Fogel’s 95-year-old mother, Mafa, gets to hug her son in Pennsylvania tonight,” McCormick said in a statement.
Fogel’s mother was at home early Tuesday when the phone rang and a person on the other line said, “buongiorno,” the standard Italian greeting her son uses every time he calls her, she said on Tuesday.
Fogel was in a Moscow airport waiting for a flight to Washington, D.C., to the joyful shock of his mother, who said she was unaware that recent negotiations that ended in his release.
“We just didn’t know anything, and he told us not to ask any questions,” she said. “He said, ‘I’m coming home.’ And hopefully he’ll be there suppertime tonight.”
