US citizen adopted from Russia gets 12.5 years in prison after he went back to look for his birth mother

A US citizen who was adopted from Russia as a toddler has been sentenced to a 12-and-a-half-year prison term after he returned to his motherland to look for his birth mom.Robert Woodland, 32, was arrested and held on drug charges earlier this year after he decided to stay in the authoritarian country following his dramatic reunion with with his biological family on a Russian TV show.

He was found guilty by a Moscow court of attempting to traffic a large quantity of drugs as part of an organized group and was sentenced on Thursday.Images from the hearing show Woodland appearing in court with a shaved head inside a glass courtroom box, smiling only briefly before his verdict was read aloud.Woodland was identified by Russian media as the English teacher interviewed by the Komsomolskaya Pravda outlet.In the 2020 interview, Woodland said he was born in Russia’s Perm region in 1991, where he was adopted by an American couple when he was only 2 years old.

As an adult, Woodland made the journey back to Russia to search for his birth mother, reconnecting with her on a state television.After their heartbreaking reunion, Woodland told Russian media that he liked living in his birth country and decided to stay, settling in Dolgoprudny and teaching English at a local school Woodland’s fairytale story came to end on Jan.

5, when he was detained on drug charges, according to Russia’s Ostankino District Court.His lawyer, Stanislav Kshevitskii, told reporters in April that Moscow had “no evidence of drug sales” linked to Woodland.Kshevitskii did not immediately provide a statement following the court’s verdict.

Woodland was among the latest wave of Americans arrested in Russia, with Washington accusing Moscow of using US citizens as political bargaining chips amid the war in Ukraine.His conviction comes just days after Moscow began its trial against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a US citizen accused of spying against the Kremlin.

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