Russia Releases Ailing American Held for 4 Years

Russia has released an American who spent more than four years in prison on disputed charges and was said to be seriously ill, a group advocating for him said Tuesday. Robert Gilman was on his way to a US military hospital in Texas, said Eric Lebson, chief strategy officer of Global Reach. Gilman's family has flown to Texas to be with him, including his mother, who was in Russia attempting to see him at the hospital. Gilman, a 32-year-old teacher detained since 2022, was initially handed a 3 1/2-year sentence in 2022 when he was convicted of beating a police officer after being taken off a train for causing a disturbance.

He later was convicted of attacking a prison inspector, as well as an investigator and a guard, and he was sentenced in October 2024 to eight years and one month. His sentence was extended last year to 10 years after he was found guilty of assaulting prison guards. Before he was flown out of Russia, Lebson said Gilman had been moved from a prison to a civilian hospital, where he was hooked up to a feeding tube and handcuffed to a bed. He described Gilman, a former Massachusetts resident, as being in "a dissociative stupor" in the hospital.