WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — Texas lawmakers are calling on officials in Russia to release a former Marine who is in jail there.
Trevor Reed is serving a nine-year sentence after police say he assaulted an officer in Moscow. Now, several members are Congress are trying to bring him home.
Reed’s mother spoke Wednesday in Washington, D.C., saying the charges against her son are false and that his punishment is too much.
“The past 396 days has been a nightmare for our family,” Paula Reed said “The American dream was just so close for him and then it was just grabbed one day from him in Moscow.”
In July, a Russian court convicted 29-year-old Reed, from Texas, on charges of assaulting a police officer after a night of heavy drinking in Moscow. Reed’s mother said he’s sitting in a Russian prison for a crime she said he didn’t commit.
“We have no part in the dispute between the United States and Russia and I badly need my son Trevor to be back home in Texas,” Paula Reed said.
Texas Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX-10) and Mike Conaway (R-TX-11) introduced a resolution Wednesday to put pressure on Russian officials to release Reed and allow him to return home.
“The fact that he is being held simply because he is a U.S. Marine is a tragedy of justice that should not prevail,” Conway said.
Both lawmakers said they hope their efforts send a stern message to Russian president Vladimir Putin
“Now he’s been in Putin’s prison for more than a year for a crime that he absolutely didn’t commit and he’s facing another nine years in a Russian labor camp,” McCaul said.
The resolution is bipartisan and now heads to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs where McCaul is a ranking member.