April 3, 2023
The Wall Street Journal
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Tom Firestone, Stroock partner and former Resident Adviser at the U.S. Embassy, discusses the series of steps the U.S. government undertakes to determine whether an American overseas is wrongfully detained. This finding commits the U.S. government to securing his or her release and dedicates government resources to the effort.
Firestone is now trying to persuade the State Department to designate U.S. citizen, Marc Fogel, as wrongfully detained. Mr. Fogel, a 61-year-old American teacher, is serving a 14-year prison sentence after his arrest for carrying about 20 grams of cannabis that a doctor had recommended for a degenerative spinal condition.
He says Russian authorities targeted Mr. Fogel because he was a teacher at Moscow’s Anglo-American School, which Moscow suspected was a center of malign foreign influence.
Firestone continues, “[f]ailing to designate Marc Fogel as wrongfully detained, the Biden administration is essentially saying that he is rightfully detained and that his 14-year sentence is just.”
Click here to read the full article.
April 3, 2023
The Wall Street Journal
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Tom Firestone, Stroock partner and former Resident Adviser at the U.S. Embassy, discusses the series of steps the U.S. government undertakes to determine whether an American overseas is wrongfully detained. This finding commits the U.S. government to securing his or her release and dedicates government resources to the effort.
Firestone is now trying to persuade the State Department to designate U.S. citizen, Marc Fogel, as wrongfully detained. Mr. Fogel, a 61-year-old American teacher, is serving a 14-year prison sentence after his arrest for carrying about 20 grams of cannabis that a doctor had recommended for a degenerative spinal condition.
He says Russian authorities targeted Mr. Fogel because he was a teacher at Moscow’s Anglo-American School, which Moscow suspected was a center of malign foreign influence.
Firestone continues, “[f]ailing to designate Marc Fogel as wrongfully detained, the Biden administration is essentially saying that he is rightfully detained and that his 14-year sentence is just.”
Click here to read the full article.
