A group of Congress members consisting of both Democrats and Republicans is pressing the State Department to use its diplomatic resources to make the task of ensuring the release of former U.S. diplomat Marc Fogel from Russian prison a priority.
In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the bipartisan lawmakers noted that Fogel was detained by Russian authorities in August 2021 over 17 grams of medical marijuana (MMJ). Fogel, who previously worked at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, was employed as an English teacher at the Anglo-American School also in Moscow. At the time of his arrest, Fogel had a doctor's recommendation for MMJ from a physician in Pennsylvania to treat chronic back pain. Despite this, Fogel was sentenced on June. 16 2022 to “unconscionable, 14 years of hard labor.”
