In a Russian Interior Ministry handout from January, Butler native Marc H. Fogel is shown on security footage being detained in August 2021 at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. Fogel was charged with drug smuggling and possession by Russian authorities and sentenced to 14 years in a Moscow prison.Tucker photo

Malphine Fogel reacted with gladness and frustration on Thursday morning when told WNBA star and Russian prisoner Brittany Griner had been freed in a prisoner exchange.

“I’m glad for her,” said Fogel of Butler, whose son, Marc, 61, has been held in Russian prison for 14 months. “I think she got a bum deal too, but it makes me sad that the others are not held in that high regard because they’re nobodies.”

Marc Fogel, a 1980 Butler Senior High graduate, was detained in Russia at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in August 2021. His subsequent sentence of 14 years in Russian prison was issued in June.

Fogel, a previous employee of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, entered the airport to begin his final year as a teacher at the Anglo-American school in Moscow.

He was found to have 17 grams of marijuana, just over half an ounce, in his luggage, along with a prescription for the medical cannabis and a letter from his doctor conforming his need for the substance due to severe back issues.

Russian authorities charged him with smuggling, but his family and others feel he was targeted when someone told airport authorities he was in possession of medical marijuana.

Malphine Fogel said when Griner was charged on Feb. 17, the family thought all Americans detained in Russian prisons on tenuous charges might be lumped together in a potential release.

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Friends, supporters and former students of Butler native Marc Fogel held a rally in October outside of the White House in Washington D.C., to urge the government to gain his release from prison in Russian. Submitted Photo