A Russian court on Wednesday added two more years to the sentence of Robert Gilman, an American citizen and Marine Corps veteran accused of attacking Russian police and prison guards.
Gilman, 30, began a career teaching English to foreign-language students after his service in the Marines. He was traveling through Russia on his way to a teaching job in Moldova in the winter of 2021 when he became seriously ill.
After spending some time recuperating and visiting family members outside of Moscow, he was on his way back to the Russian capital when he grew sick again. According to Gilman’s supporters, while on the train on his way back to Moscow to have his passport repaired at the U.S. Embassy, he became violently ill again, and instead of helping him, Russian police beat him without provocation and took him to the police station, instead of a hospital. While he was struggling with the police, he accidentally struck one of the officers with his leg.
Russian prosecutors claim Gilman was drunk and causing a disturbance aboard the train he was traveling on and they charged him with assaulting the police officers, rather than the other way around.
Originally charged with mere “hooliganism,” Gilman was hit with a whirlwind of increasingly serious charges, a pattern that critics of the Russian government say is typical when Moscow wants to create a legalistic pretext for taking a hostage.
Gilman’s supporters say he has been drugged, abused, and even tortured while in custody, while Russian prosecutors accuse him of bringing more charges on himself by misbehaving. He was initially sentenced to three and a half years in prison in the city of Voronezh, but his sentence was extended last year after he was accused of violence against prison guards.
On Wednesday, Gilman was found guilty of yet another assault on staffers at the prison, and another two years were added to his sentence, bringing the total up to ten years.
Local media in Voronezh reported that Gilman admitted to some of the assaults he was charged with and apologized in court, saying he was upset by a potential transfer to a much more unpleasant maximum-security penal colony. His Russian lawyer, Irina Brazhnikova, told Russian state media that Gilman did not intend to appeal the latest verdict against him.
The Moscow Times reported on Wednesday that Gilman still faces additional charges for another alleged assault on a prison guard, a case that will be heard on December 25. His sentence could be lengthened again if he is found guilty on these charges.
Gilman is one of nine U.S. citizens currently jailed in Russia whose release has been sought by the Trump administration. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, said he discussed the possibility of a prisoner swap with White House officials when he visited Washington, DC, in October. He did not specify whether Gilman was one of the prisoners who could be included in the swap.
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