It took more than three years, but it finally happened: The State Department has deemed Marc Fogel wrongfully detained.

In August 2021, the teacher from Oakmont was returning to Russia to teach at the Anglo-American School of Moscow. He was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport when he was found in possession of 17 grams of medical marijuana.

The cannabis was legally dispensed in Pennsylvania. Fogel suffers from chronic and severe back, hip and knee pain. He has had multiple back surgeries and a spinal fusion. He had his prescription and was prepared to declare the marijuana at customs but never got the chance.

Instead, he was sentenced to spend 14 years in a maximum-security penal colony.

Although Fogel’s family begged, he was denied the one thing the U.S. government could really do for him. He was not designated as wrongfully detained.

A long list of legislators pushed for it. They wrote letters. A bipartisan resolution sponsored by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Chris Deluzio called for Fogel’s release.

Yet there was no movement.

Fogel was there as WNBA star Brittney Griner was arrested, designated wrongfully detained and traded for a notorious arms dealer. He watched as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on March 29, 2023. Gershkovich was designated wrongfully detained 12 days later. The State Department issued a news release announcing it and asking for his release — and that of ex-Marine Paul Whelan, who also was labeled as wrongfully detained. Fogel was not mentioned.

Fogel hoped to be included in the August prisoner exchange that brought home Gershkovich and Whelan as well as Radio Free Europe reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and Washington Post contributor Vladimir Kara- Murza. But he was not. In a call to family afterward, Fogel described the dark place he was left.

“It’s like I’m in a bottomless pit and it keeps getting worse,” he said.

Fogel’s family in June filed a lawsuit against the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claiming Fogel, a Butler native, was treated unfairly by his own government in not receiving the wrongfully detained label. That suit was withdrawn Thursday. Attorney Edward Phillips confirmed to TribLive that the designation was given at some point since mid-October.

The State Department responded Oct. 16 and Nov. 29 to requests for comment by TribLive without indicating a change in Fogel’s status.

There is also no movement on House Bill 4388 — The Marc Fogel Act. Introduced by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, in June 2023, the bill would not help Fogel, especially now that he is designated wrongfully detained. But it would keep other people from the answerless void he and his family have experienced.

The bill would amend the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act of 2020 to set a 180-day deadline for the State Department to report to Congress when the wrongfully detained designation is not given.

This is important. The State Department has Level 4 travel advisories for 20 countries. All are dated since April 2023. The countries are as close as Haiti and as far as Burma. Russia is noted as having “a continued risk of wrongful detention.”

There are too many countries where Americans are at risk of manufactured crimes or, like Fogel, legitimate charges blown up to inflated sentences because of U.S. citizenship. The Marc Fogel Act would keep the State Department’s decision-making subject to oversight. Even if Fogel comes home soon, the bill should be passed to protect all of the other Marc Fogels out there.

The State Department still has work to do to bring Fogel home. That has to be the priority. But lawmakers need to do their part to make the more than three years he has spent in a Russian prison have some kind of meaning.

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