By Jonathan Franks, LUCID Strategies · June 29, 2026
Michael “Travis” Leake, a U.S. Air Force veteran, has now spent 1,103 days inside a Russian penal colony for a crime the trial record shows he did not commit.
He is not famous. That, his family says, is part of why he is still there.
In a recording made from inside the colony and released by his family, Leake puts it plainly: “I’m sorry I’m not a journalist. I’m sorry I’m not a basketball player. I’m sorry I’m not somebody that’s important. But what I’m not is a drug dealer — and there’s no reason for me to be here.”
Leake, an American citizen who lived in Moscow for more than a decade and played in Russian rock bands, was detained there in June 2023. In July 2024, a Moscow court sentenced him to 13 years on drug charges he has denied from the first day. He is held at IK-6, a Russian penal colony. His arrest and trial were covered at the time by CNN, ABC News, CBS News, the Associated Press, NPR, Reuters, and the BBC.
One thing has not happened. The U.S. government has not designated Leake “wrongfully detained” — the determination, under the Robert Levinson Act, that moves a case out of routine consular handling and over to the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, the office with the standing to bring an American home. His family says he meets the law’s criteria. Two administrations have, in writing, declined to make the call.
This week the family put the full record in public view. A new campaign site, freetravisleake.com, lays out what his family says Washington has not weighed: the translated Russian court file, his defense lawyer’s closing argument, and the formal request asking the State Department to recognize Travis as wrongfully detained. It also collects the short videos he recorded from prison — including the appeal above — and a page of concrete steps for people who want to help.
“My son writes me multiple times a week wondering why he hasn’t been designated,” his mother, Glenda Garcia, says in a statement on the site. “I would be very grateful if the government could revisit Travis’s case with fresh eyes, from scratch.”
He wore his country’s uniform. The promise that an American citizen does not get left behind is older than any one administration, and it does not turn on whether the citizen is famous. Other Americans have come home once their government chose to treat their cases that way.
The ask is narrow, and it belongs to the government: review Travis Leake’s case against the Levinson Act factors, designate him wrongfully detained, and hand it to the people whose job is bringing Americans home. That choice has not yet been made for Travis. He served his country. He is asking it to remember him.
LUCID Strategies is the spokesperson for the Leake family and handles its press and public advocacy. The case, the documents, and ways to help are at freetravisleake.com. Press inquiries are welcome.
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