On Aug. 13, 2021, Marc and Jane Fogel pulled away from their white colonial-style home in Oakmont to drive to New York City.
There, they boarded a plane to Moscow to begin their final year teaching at the Anglo-American School, an elite institution built for the children of western diplomats.
But when the couple landed, Russian authorities detained Marc, seizing from him less than an ounce of marijuana he had been prescribed in Pittsburgh to alleviate severe back pain. A judge convicted Marc of drug smuggling and sentenced him to prison.
So began an excruciating ordeal that kept him in Russian custody for 1,277 days.
On Feb. 11, President Donald Trump’s administration secured Marc’s release and brought him home.
This is Marc’s story.
CHAPTER 4: Freedom
———-
For months, Marc Fogel had been going through the motions during his captivity in a Russian prison system nearly 5,000 miles from his home in Pittsburgh.
After being left behind in a massive, multi-nation prisoner swap in August 2024, Marc’s mood had turned foul. He no longer cared about what the guards said to him. He had become belligerent, isolated.
“I had arguments that I’d never had before,” he said. “I lost my cool more times from August to February than I did the three years before then.”
On the morning of Feb. 4, 2025, when two Russian officers entered Marc’s barracks — one of them carrying a camera — he was in no mood.
They wanted pictures of him in front of the bunk.
He had gone through this process before, so it wasn’t significant to Marc at the time. As he complied, he decided to mess with the guards.
He began to pose like a model, leaning on his bunk, sitting on a stool pretending to read. Marc heard other guards who had been watching laugh, and then the first two taking the pictures left. About an hour later, another guard who spoke English returned.
“How many bags do you have, Marc?” the man asked.
“What do you mean, ‘How many bags do I have?’ For what?” Marc replied.
The guard repeated the question but gave no explanation.
Frustrated, Marc said he had a bag of food and bags of books.
The guard kept repeating the question.
“He must have asked five times: ‘How many bags do you have?’ I said, ‘If I’m fucking leaving, one.’”
And he said, “Get the bag.”
A new cell
A couple of months earlier, around Christmas 2024, Marc had been advised by his Russian lawyers to have a bag ready just in case he was released. In it, he had his journals and books.
When the guard told him to grab it that morning in February, Marc couldn’t help but be hopeful. But he also knew to keep his feelings in check — he had been disappointed before.
Still, the guards kept him in the dark.
Not wanting to leave behind the one lifeline to maintaining his sanity over the last 3½ years, Marc kept repeating to one of the officers, “I want all my books. You’ve stolen my books.”
The officer ignored him. Puffing away on cigarettes, the officer spent 45 minutes filling out a form in longhand. Finally, Marc was made to sign the paper, and still nobody told him where he was going.
“I’m thinking, ‘OK, maybe this is good,’ but you don’t believe anything,” he said. “My hopes had been crushed.”
Then the guards took Marc to the room at the Rybinsk penal colony 200 miles north of Moscow where incoming prisoners get new uniforms.
They gave Marc new clothes and shoes. They took him to the barbershop, gave him a haircut. They made him shave.
The guards took Marc to another room, had him strip down and photographed him naked.
It was to prove he hadn’t been beaten.
An entourage of about a dozen people then escorted Marc to a different area of the prison.
“Everybody sensed I was leaving,” he said. “But I didn’t believe it in a heartbeat.”
Marc was put in a freezing cold truck by himself. It had no windows and a seat barely wide enough for him.
The two guards smoked the entire seven-hour drive back to Moscow in the snow.
“I’m just going crazy back there,” Marc recalled, desperate to learn where he was going.
He believed at the end of the drive that they had arrived at another corrections facility — Lefortovo Prison, where Russia typically moved its high-value prisoners, including Evan Gershkovich, Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan prior to their release.
As Marc stepped off the truck, the guards put a hood over his head. When he looked down, he could see the ground. The floor had been freshly painted.
He took it as a good sign.
They got to a door, and Marc automatically put his head against the wall like he had been conditioned to do after more than three years in prison.
A guard manhandled Marc, pulling him by the scruff of his jacket.
He heard the rattle of keys and the sound of a door opening. Marc was shoved inside a cell as the guards ripped off his hood and closed the door.
He remained alone for seven days, receiving food through a slot.
He received no information about his fate. He left only once during the week for a five-minute shower.
Although the guards allowed Marc to keep a couple of books, and he was able to write in his journals, overhead fluorescent lights never turned off. It was like being back in Rybinsk, where the guards kept the lights on all night.
The cell was frigid, and he had only a thin blanket, one sheet and a dirty pillow on his bunk. Marc used the winter jacket he had been wearing as a blanket over his legs.
The one blessing in the cell was hot, running water and a bucket. Each night, he filled the bucket and soaked his feet.
“That was the only way I could get warm,” he said. “I did not sleep. It was just simply laying there trying to get through the night.”
‘Let’s get you on the plane’
On the morning of Feb. 11, Marc was pulled from his prison cell — and given civilian clothes.
That’s when he knew he was going home.
A half-dozen masked Russian agents led Marc, wearing a burnt orange Columbia jacket that had been sent to him by his wife Jane just a few months into his incarceration, out of Lefortovo and onto a white minibus. They headed for the airport.
A video made by officers that day showed Marc on the bus. One asked how he was.
“Very tired,” he answered, as he pulled on the Pittsburgh Steelers tossle cap that came with the jacket.
“Do you know where we’re going to?” the officer asked.
“I hope to the airport,” Marc responded.
“How are you feeling?” the guard continued.
“I just want to be reunited with my family,” Marc replied. He asked what airport they were headed to and whether there were any other Americans going home.
The guards did not answer.
Officers escorted Marc into the terminal at Vnukovo International Airport, a different airport than where he had been arrested in August 2021 for carrying medical marijuana into the country.
For six hours, Marc waited. His handlers gave him coffee and white bread sandwiches. He talked about hockey with a couple of the Russian officers who spoke English.
At one point, Marc sat on an orange couch in a lounge, a copy of “Anna Karenina” next to him. It was the only book he had been allowed to keep. The guards took all of his notebooks and journals.
Eventually, they moved him to a lobby area where a group of reporters and photographers had gathered. He sat on the couch, his head down, his hands clasped in front of him.
Marc prayed the same mantra he had for the entirety of his time in prison.
“Please, Jesus, please, Mary, reunite me with my family soon.”
A short time later, media members scurried into action as a group of seven or eight people entered the room.
“Finally, there was somebody that wasn’t KGB around me,” Marc said.
A man with salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a camel-hair coat and white dress shirt with no tie approached and introduced himself in an American accent.
It was Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, a Bronx, N.Y., native and billionaire businessman who had spent three hours meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin prior to securing Marc’s release.
Marc’s face lit up.
“It’s such a pleasure,” Marc said extending his hand.
“Let’s get you on the plane,” Witkoff said.
As an officer handed Marc his passport, he kissed it.
Marc walked out into the dark, sleeting Russian night, bounded up the steps of Witkoff’s private jet and let out a whoop.
Reese’s and The Economist
For seven days, Marc’s family did not know where he was or what was happening.
Although they had gone 15 months without speaking to Marc when he was first arrested, his loved ones had become accustomed to regular phone calls from Rybinsk — a luxury granted through the Russian mafia that ran the prison.
Regular contact had reassured them Marc was surviving.
But on Feb. 4, Marc didn’t call. Instead, after he had been taken out of Rybinsk, three of Marc’s fellow prisoners texted his sister, Anne, and his wife, Jane. They told the women that Marc had gotten new clothes and a haircut.
“Marc just left Rybinsk,” they wrote. “We don’t think he’s going to the hospital. We think he’s heading home. Our fingers are crossed.”
Little information was relayed to the Fogel family over the next several days.
But on Feb. 9, during halftime of the Super Bowl — the Philadelphia Eagles were dominating the Kansas City Chiefs, 24-0 — Jane received a phone call from Rob Crotty, who worked for the special envoy for hostage affairs.
“Tell me some things that Marc likes and what clothes size he is,” Crotty said.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and The Economist magazine, Jane told him. “He had a 36 waist when he left,” she said.
The family, who had gotten their hopes up before, tried to remain grounded. The next day, Feb. 10, they learned that Witkoff’s plane had landed in Russia.
“You almost don’t want to breathe,” Anne Fogel said. “We were afraid to actually verbalize anything for fear of ruining it.”
For years, their family had been urging the American government to help bring Marc home. They lobbied Congress and met with the State Department and White House officials. They hired attorneys and public relations firms.
“What a struggle, my God,” Anne said. “It was hands down the most difficult period of time in my life — and my husband died. I’ve lived through some pretty horrible things.”
The anxiety caused health problems for Anne and her sister, Lisa.
In addition to lobbying, the family tried to call as much attention to Marc’s plight as they could. They held art exhibits, rallied outside the White House and promoted a letter-writing campaign among his former students — who even made a documentary about his case. They spoke often to the media.
“It was utterly and completely all-consuming,” Anne said.
Marc’s then-95-year-old mother, Malphine, had been a force throughout. She visited with congressmen and senators and even met with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 13, 2024, in Butler County, just minutes before the rally where he was shot.
They had done everything in their power to try to bring Marc home. Finally, it seemed, their wish was about to come true.
‘I’m coming home’
Almost immediately upon boarding the private jet, Witkoff screamed at the pilots, “Get this fucking plane out of here! Get it going!”
They told him they needed to de-ice before takeoff. Witkoff didn’t care.
“I want this plane up now,” Witkoff responded.
They took off in short order. The ascent from Moscow was tense.
About 17 minutes into the flight, Marc heard cellphones start pinging throughout the plane from incoming texts. The jet had just crossed out of Russia and into Estonian airspace. They once again had a cell signal.
A cheer rose up around Marc.
The gravity of the moment struck him. One of the State Department employees asked Marc if he wanted to phone home.
He called Jane first.
“Hey, baby cakes,” he said. “I’m on the plane. I’m coming home.”
Marc called his mother next.
“Mom, I’m on the plane,” he began.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“It’s me. It’s Marc. I’m coming home.”
“You never call at this time,” Malphine said.
“She was just kind of like shaking,” Marc said. “I could hear the cracking of her voice.”
Pumped up
Crotty, who was on the flight, asked Marc if he wanted a drink.
“I thought that might be a good idea,” Marc said, “and one of the pilots said, ‘Well, we’ve got some vodka in here.’ And I said, ‘You know what? I don’t think I can do vodka right now.’”
Crotty had brought a bottle of Pinhook Kentucky bourbon. They poured a belt for Marc, who kissed the crystal tumbler before nursing the drink.
Witkoff had food on board, but Marc felt so amped up that he could eat only small bites. He shared the peanut butter cups.
As Marc finally settled in, he felt numb.
He asked who won the Super Bowl and chatted with the four pilots — a pair to fly to Russia and another to fly home. Two had been born in Venezuela, where Marc and Jane once lived during their days as international teachers. When they learned Marc spoke Spanish, they invited him to join them in the cockpit.
They talked for a while before Crotty said to Marc, “Hey, we made a bed for you. Maybe you want to have a little bit of a rest?”
But Marc couldn’t.
“I don’t think I stopped talking for nine hours and 45 minutes,” he said. “The adrenaline was pumping. I couldn’t shut up. I couldn’t lay down.”
Marc talked to Witkoff some, too.
“One thing I will never forget, he said to me, ‘Marc, don’t underestimate what you’ve just achieved,’” Marc said.
As the flight continued, he also talked to a member of the Secret Service, who shared the nickname he got from his dad, Cubby. Then Marc saw the aurora borealis for the first time coming across Iceland.
“It was just a magical, scary, amazing time,” Marc said.
He was told he was on his way to Washington, D.C., where he would meet the president.
The luckiest man
When they touched down at Joint Base Andrews around 9:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, a group of dignitaries greeted Marc.
With an American flag draped around his neck and a huge smile across his face, he traversed the jet’s steps, immediately bent down and kissed the snow-covered tarmac.
The group split up into three black Chevy Suburbans — Marc rode with Witkoff — and made the snowy, 15-mile drive to the White House, traveling the same streets Marc had more than 35 years earlier when he worked his first teaching job in Prince George’s County.
Trump emerged from the White House about 10:30 p.m. as snow swirled around him. He chatted briefly with the media as they awaited the convoy’s arrival.
Witkoff exited first.
“Mr. President,” he said gesturing behind him, “Marc Fogel.”
“You look good,” Trump said to Marc as the two shook hands.
For a few minutes, they chatted privately, though the press cameras captured their exchange.
“It’s very difficult to articulate how proud I am of you and how proud I am of what you’ve done, being back in my country,” Marc told Trump, his eyes tearing up. “I love this country.”
Trump referenced what he told Marc’s mother at the Butler rally.
“If I win, we’re going to do it,” he had told Malphine.
“I’m honored to keep that promise to your mother,” Trump said.
“I’m in total awe,” Marc replied. “My thanks is for you and your administration and these amazing people that have brought me home. I just will spend the rest of my life in debt to you.”
Trump then took Marc’s hand to introduce him to the dignitaries, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, several members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others.
The group went inside to the Diplomatic Reception Room. There, Marc, standing before the famed panoramic wallpaper “Views of North America,” printed in 1834 and installed in 1961, addressed Trump and a gaggle of reporters. He and the president spoke for about 10 minutes.
“I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now,” Marc said. “President Trump is a hero.”
He credited the American diplomats who brought him home, as well as those in Congress who pushed for his return.
“I am in awe of what they all did,” he said. “My family has been a force. I am so indebted to so many people.”
Marc then quoted Winston Churchill, adapting the words to his circumstance: “Never has one owed so much to so many,” he said.
That love and support, Marc continued, grasping a can of Iron City Beer he had been handed by U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, a Democrat from Fox Chapel, sustained him through 3½ years, 100 days in Russian hospitals and 400 injections in his long-ailing back.
“Knowing I had the support of my fellow Pennsylvanians, my family, my friends, it was so overwhelming that it brought me to my knees, and it brought me to tears,” he said. “But it was my energy, it was my being — that kept me going that whole time — and I will forever be indebted to President Trump.
“I’m a middle-class school teacher who’s now in a dream world. Thank you, all. I love our country, and I’m so happy to be back here.”
Trump then offered to show Marc the Lincoln Bedroom.
“There’s probably some photos of me standing in front of the Gettysburg Address,” Marc said. “There’s still part of me that is just shaking, sort of unbelievable.
“Like when I tell these stories, it’s really not me.”
‘Bursting at the seams’
After the White House visit came to an end, Crotty drove Marc to the historic Waldorf Astoria less than a mile away. There, he spent his first night back in the United States.
Because of a snowstorm on the East Coast, Marc’s family had been told to go directly to San Antonio, Texas, where Marc would arrive the next day to undergo a medical evaluation.
Although Marc was in a luxurious two-room suite filled with amenities, he could not appreciate any of it. Despite barely sleeping for the previous seven days — and not at all for more than 24 hours — Marc couldn’t calm down.
“You just can’t understand the intensity within my body, nervous system, dopamine, whatever is happening,” he said. “It’s off the charts.
“To sort of be at the end of it, there was not one ounce of me that could be exhausted. I was bursting at the seams.”
He tried to watch television but couldn’t focus. He tried to read that Economist. He couldn’t concentrate.
Instead, he reverted to what he had done throughout his captivity.
“I just paced that room for many, many hours until it became morning,” he said.
During his “recreation” time at the Rybinsk penal colony, Marc was granted an hour on the roof of one of the buildings.
He was permitted to walk around the outside of an old, empty swimming pool surrounded by razor wire and chicken wire.
Eight steps one direction, eight steps back.
“I went right back to that in that room,” Marc said, “and it was like, ‘I’m doing the same thing as I was in prison, but I was in the fucking Waldorf Astoria.’”
After daybreak, he had his first breakfast of freedom: bacon and eggs. He talked to his mom on the phone and met with his two lawyers from Moscow via video call.
Then Crotty and a colleague arrived around 10 a.m. to take Marc to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Crotty gave Marc a copy of that day’s Wall Street Journal, which prominently featured his return. As they walked through the hotel, the newspaper tucked under Marc’s arm, his Steelers cap on his head, a doorman approached.
“Oh my God, what’s happening?” Marc thought. “I was scared as a rabbit. And this guy said, ‘Look at that picture. Can you believe that guy? That guy was at the White House.’”
Crotty pulled Marc’s hat off.
“This guy?” Crotty asked, laughing.
“And all of a sudden, all these other doormen come over, and we had this sort of moment,” Marc said.
He then left with the two agents, heading for Dulles International Airport to begin the final leg of his journey.
About this project
Over eight months, TribLive reporter Paula Reed Ward met with Marc Fogel a dozen times to talk about his experiences being held in the Russian prison system, his dramatic rescue and his ongoing adjustment to freedom.
Ward spent more than 20 hours in conversation with Fogel and interviewed his loved ones, attorneys, government officials and friends. She also reviewed Russian court documents and U.S. State Department filings.
This five-day exclusive series, which includes visuals from TribLive photographer Kristina Serafini, is the culmination of that reporting.
About the author
Paula Reed Ward joined TribLive in August 2020 as a courts reporter following a 17-year career at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where she was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the synagogue shooting in Squirrel Hill.
Raised in Pleasant Hills, Paula attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania and majored in journalism. Her first job was at the Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald. She then spent five years as a police and courts reporter at the Savannah Morning News, in Savannah, Ga. It was there that she also earned a master’s degree in criminal justice.
Paula is an adjunct professor at Duquesne University and is also the author of the book “Death by Cyanide: The Murder of Dr. Autumn Klein.”
You can contact Paula at pward@triblive.com.
The series
Chapter One: From Darkness to Light: Marc Fogel’s journey to freedom
Chapter Three: Fogel spends days reading, praying and grappling unpredictable conditions
Chapter Four: Unexplained departure, and then a triumphant arrival to the U.S.
Coming Wednesday: Chapter Five: Finding a new normal, and working through guilt; ‘We will be thankful for generations’