Lisa Hyland gets a hug from Karen Poth during their annual family reunion at Sugarcreek Community Park in July. This was the family's first reunion without Hyland's brother, Marc Fogel, since he was detained in Russia about a year ago. Joseph Ressler/Butler Eagle

Butler native Marc Fogel has been moved from Moscow to an intermediary facility before his transfer to a penal colony. It’s there that he is supposed to serve his 14-year sentence for bringing medical marijuana into the country in August 2021, family members said.

Fogel, a 61-year-old husband and father of two who lives in Oakmont, Allegheny County, was detained after he was found in possession of less than an ounce of medical marijuana after he landed at an airport.

His sister, Lisa Hyland, of O’Hara Township in Allegheny County, said the family has known he would be sent to a penal colony to serve his sentence after his appeal of the sentence was denied in August.

As of Thursday, she said he had been moved from where he was being held in Moscow to a penal colony.

“He’s in an intermediary facility now. He’s no longer where he was in Moscow. He will be moved again, and we don’t know when.” Hyland said. “It’s horrific.”

Working through attorneys in Washington, D.C., Hyland and other family members have asked the U.S. Department of State to reclassify Fogel as wrongfully detained and secure his return home.

U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly, R-16th, Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-15th, Conor Lamb, D-17th, and other elected officials have supported that effort.

“A lot of people are asking, but there’s been no change in his status,” Hyland said.

She said family has been able to write to her brother using an electronic system in place at the Moscow facility, but they can’t contact him now.

“We really have no way of contacting him in this intermediary facility,” she said.

Fogel taught history courses at schools attended by children of U.S. diplomats in Colombia, Venezuela, Oman, Malaysia and, for the last 10 years, Russia.

When he returned to Russia in August 2021 to continue teaching at an Anglo-American school in Moscow, Fogel was detained in the Sheremetyevo Airport with slightly more than half an ounce of medical marijuana, which was prescribed in the U.S.

Following three back surgeries, a spinal fusion, a hip replacement and two knee surgeries, the marijuana was prescribed to Fogel in 2021 as a solution to chronic pain and an alternative to opioid treatment.

While many states in the United States have legalized medical and even recreational marijuana use, it remains an illegal substance in Russia.