The 95-year-old mother of an American teacher imprisoned in Russia for three years says former President Donald Trump promised to bring her son back shortly before he was shot during a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.
Mark Fogel’s 95-year-old mother, Marfin Fogel, was a VIP guest at the Butler rally and chatted with Trump before he took the podium.
“I told him about my son, Mark,” she told The Post in a phone interview on Wednesday, “and explained that he’s in a Russian prison for the same crimes that Brittany Griner committed.”
Mark Fogel, 65, who taught history at the Anglo American School in Moscow for nearly a decade, was arrested by Russian authorities in August 2021 after attempting to enter Russia with about half an ounce of medical marijuana that had been prescribed in the United States for chronic pain.
He was sentenced to a shocking 14 years in prison the following June.
“[Griner] “My son was in prison for 10 months before President Biden released him. He has been in prison for three years and we have not heard from the president or anyone in Washington,” the boy’s heartbroken mother said.
The educator, married father of two, is not on any list of Americans being “unfairly detained” in Russia, and although his wife has previously spoken to Biden, the administration has not publicly called for his release, as it has done for professional basketball players freed in prisoner swaps.
But Biden’s Republican opponent has promised to free the woman’s son, who is in her 90s.
“Trump gave me the thumbs up and said, ‘When I’m president, I’m going to get rid of him,'” Marfin said. “He was a very kind and genuine guy.”
She added that her son is in hospital for back pain and is receiving injections, but she worries he is not receiving proper care.
“Mark needs to be defined as being unlawfully detained,” she said, adding that she hopes Trump, 78, will refer to him while campaigning for the presidency.
The grandmother also described the rally as a roller coaster of emotions: one minute he had the chance to speak with the former president about his son, and the next he watched as a bullet grazed his ear and another shot killed an attendee.
“It still doesn’t sink in. One moment I’m backstage talking to Trump, pleading with him to help my son, and then minutes later I’m sitting in front of him, hearing gunshots, seeing blood coming from his ear, and then I’m thrown to the ground,” she told The Washington Post.
Marfin, who voted for Trump twice, said hearing the gunshots and seeing one of the attendees fall reminded him of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“I knew this was big news,” she said. “Someone was standing 20 feet in front of me and got shot. I knew this wasn’t good.”
“Afterwards I felt very disappointed and it reminded me of President Kennedy. I still remember that shooting vividly,” the 95-year-old said.
“I asked myself if I hadn’t learned anything.”
