After nearly two years in a Russian prison, Oakmont teacher Marc Fogel said Thursday he is able to live with excruciating joint pain but pleaded for U.S. officials to bring him home, the hope of a miracle never far from his thoughts.
“I see doctors here. They’ve given me medicines. They haven’t let me rot,” Fogel said in an exclusive phone call with TribLive at his mother’s home in Butler County.
It was the first time that Fogel, 63, spoke with a reporter since his August 2021 arrest for possession of 17 grams of medical marijuana. He was convicted in June 2022 and sentenced to a penal colony for 14 years. Fogel remains one of several high-profile Americans detained in Russia, including journalist Evan Gershkovich, who has been held since March 2023 on espionage charges.
During the 10-minute conversation, Fogel was careful in his comments. He did not criticize Russian authorities or decry the conditions of his prison. He did, however, speak about his health.
“Spinal injuries are profound injuries. There’s nerve damage and numbness, and my balance is not as good as it should be,” he said. The medical marijuana Fogel possessed when arrested was prescribed legally in Pennsylvania for back and knee pain.
Fogel’s family supplied the Trib with X-rays of his back taken at the European Medical Center in Moscow in 2013. The images show the surgical pins and screws in his spine. He turned to medical marijuana, he said, as an alternative to the harsher risks of opioids.