Russia sentences U.S. man Robert Woodland to prison on drug charges
CBSN
A Russian court has sentenced an American man to 12 and a half years in prison on drug charges, his lawyer told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. Robert Woodland, who's believed to be a U.S.-Russian dual national who was living outside Moscow and working as a teacher, was detained in January and has been in custody ever since.
Russia's state-run media said Woodland was found guilty of attempted trafficking of large quantities of illegal drugs and being part of an organized criminal group. Reuters quoted Woodland's lawyer, Stanislav Kshevitsky, as saying he had pleaded partially guilty to the charges.
In a 2020 interview with Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Woodland said he had decided to return to the country where he was born after living with a foster family in the U.S. for most of his life. He said that at the age of 26, he decided try to track down his biological mother. After eventually meeting her on a Russian TV show, he decided to move to Russia.
