IUP’s president has issued another statement on the confinement of university alumnus Marc Fogel.
The statement comes on the heels of an editorial published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette written by Fogel’s mother, Malphine Fogel. In her writing, she chastised the US Government for working to gain the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner ahead of her husband, as she was also arrested in Russia for the same crime, and while she is back in the United States, her son remains in a Russian prison camp. She also stated that she is afraid that she may never see her son again, nor he may never see the United States again.
IUP president Dr. Michael Driscoll said that he joins in the hope that President Joe Biden sees the editorial, and that the IUP community continues to stand with Fogel and his family in the hope to bring him home.
Fogel was arrested in Russia in August of 2021 after authorities found medical marijuana legally prescribed to him in his suitcase and is serving a 14-year prison sentence. Recnetly, federal congress and senate members representing Pennsylvania and our area have been working on getting “wrongfully detained” status for Fogel.
