A Russian court has found WNBA player Brittney Griner guilty of drug smuggling with a criminal intent to distribute.
The decision came on Thursday, Aug. 4, and now the two-time Olympic gold medalist has been sentenced to 9 years in a penal colony. The prosecutor is also asking for her to pay 1 million Russian roubles in fines, a total of $16,500 in American dollars, ABC News reports.
The baller does have the right to appeal and her team said, “we will certainly file,” calling the verdict “absolutely unreasonable,” the New York Times reveals.
Her lawyers, Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin, and Alexander Boykov, of Moscow Legal Center, said the Russian court “completely ignored all the evidence of the defense, and most importantly, the guilty plea.”
Griner, a member of the Phoenix Mercury WNBA franchise, went to the red nation to play during her offseason as a way to make extra money. She went to play for the Russian basketball team, UMMC Yekaterinburg.
Like in most industries, women make less than their male counterparts. Whereas multiple NBA players, even rookies, come into the NBA making over $1 million, the top WNBA player has a salary of about $228K.
While she was traveling officials found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. Though she pled guilty to the drug charges in July, she said she accidentally packed the paraphernalia and had no “intention” to break her host country’s law. She shared she was rushing and still stressed after battling COVID-19 weeks earlier.
When explaining why she had the hash in the first place, her American doctor was able to send testimony via a letter stating she has been approved for medical use of cannabis to reduce chronic pain coming from being an athlete.
Pleading guilty was recommended by her Russian lawyers.
In a statement, they said, “Brittney sets an example of being brave. She decided to take full responsibility for her actions as she knows that she is a role model for many people.”
“Considering the nature of her case,” she continued. “The insignificant amount of the substance and BG’s personality and history of positive contributions to global and Russian sport, the defense hopes that the plea will be considered by the court as a mitigating factor and there will be no severe sentence.”
The U.S. Department of State has said that Finer is being “wrongfully detained” and will be working to try and bring her and another prisoner home.
“We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope [to] move us toward a resolution,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
“I pressed the Kremlin to accept the substantial proposal that we put forth on the release of Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner,” Blinken continued. “I’m not going to characterize his responses and I can’t give you an assessment of whether I think things are more or less likely, but it was important that [he] hear directly from me on that.”
His Russian counterpart is playing chess with the White House official.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova countered saying that “the issue of mutual exchange of Russian and American citizens, staying in places of detention on the territory of the two countries, was discussed at one time by the presidents of Russia and the United States,” but “a concrete result has not yet been achieved.”
