Brittney Griner’s first WNBA game back was met with a lukewarm response…
Last year, Brittney Griner was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
She was found guilty of drug possession and smuggling with criminal intent by a Russian court.
Griner was in Russian custody since being detained in February.
This came after the Russian Federal Customs Service found vape cartridges containing hashish oil, a marijuana concentrate, in her luggage.
In her final plea to the court, Griner said: “I never meant to hurt anybody.”
“I never meant to put in jeopardy the Russian population. I never meant to break any laws here. I made an honest mistake and I hope that in your ruling that it doesn’t end my life here.”
The Texas-born professional basketball player’s defense team slammed the verdict…
The New York Times reported that they called it “absolutely unreasonable.”
They also said they would “certainly file an appeal.”
Griner was also fined 1 million rubles (around $16,300) by the court.
The US government was said to be doing everything it could to get Griner home…
But it was not only the government trying to help Griner…
Professional basketball player Kyrie Irving also called out President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to issue more information on the matter…
And his series of tweets have gone viral on the internet.
“What is truly happening with our Queen @brittneygriner @POTUS @VP?
“Please give us an Update,” he added.
And it’s not only Irving who raised his voice out loud…
“Anyone that goes back to Russia to play is insane. Praying for BG man…this is breaking my heart seeing her right now 😔😔😔,” wrote WNBA star Lexie Brown.
Ex-NFL star Robert Griffin also expressed his opinion in favor of Brittney.
“BRING BRITTNEY GRINER HOME!!!” tweeted Griffin.
The NBA and WNBA released a joint statement too and according to TMZ it said: “Griner’s verdict and sentencing was unjustified and unfortunate,” but noted that the organization “will stop at nothing to make sure she comes home.”
But the support for Griner didn’t stop there…
Even Justin Bieber had let out how he felt about the matter.
“If anyone knows of anyway (sic) I can help please let me know,” Bieber wrote.
However, it was previously reported that the USA made a “very good offer” to bring Brittney back home.
The facility where she faced incarceration was then revealed.
The prison has a reputation in Russia as one of the worst facilities in the country.
It’s called IK-14, and it did not look good for Griner.
It’s even been dubbed a ‘gulag labor camp’, according to Business Insider.
The report by Business Insider said the prison is situated in Russia’s central region of Mordovia.
And it’s just as bad as it sounds.
Covered by a blanket of snow, the dismal grey building is far worse than the typical prison you’d expect here in the U.S.
The building, surrounded by barbed wire, is said to be infested with rats, as well as various diseases, putting the prisoners at risk.
Former inmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who’s a political activist, previously described staying there.
She claimed they had to work 17 hours a day, with 1 days off every 2 months.
Another former inmate, Gelena Alekseyeva, also went into detail about the colony.
“Mice lived with us. Rats lived with us in the industrial zone,” she told Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. “Before you went into the bathroom, you needed to knock — there were special poles for that. So that the rats would scatter.”
Former NBA star, Dennis Rodman, had spoken out about Griner’s sentence…
According to reports, Rodman, who tried to cultivate an image as an informal U.S. diplomat to North Korea and Russia, is doing something about it.
He is more likely to hurt than help, said a senior Biden administration official.
“It’s public information that the administration has made a significant offer to the Russians and anything other than negotiating further through the established channel is likely to complicate and hinder release efforts,” said the official.
Rodman has already cultivated a relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the past decade by making multiple visits to the country.
And that’s not all…
He called Russian President Vladimir Putin “cool” after a 2014 trip to Moscow…
While in 2018, he showed up on the sidelines of former President Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, crediting himself with helping to secure the release of American Kenneth Bae from North Korea.
“I got permission to go to Russia to help that girl,” Rodman told NBC News in a restaurant in Washington DC.
The legendary NBA player said he was doing all he could to get to Russia.
“I’m trying to go this week,” he added.
If Rodman goes to Russia, it won’t be the first time he’s dealt with an international leader who has strained relations with the U.S.
But Ned Price, a State Department spokesperson, had revealed something interesting…
According to TMZ, Price said Rodman would not be traveling on behalf of the U.S. government.
This was mainly because the government felt Rodman’s involvement might mess up the U.S.’s current negotiations with Russia to get Griner out.
And reportedly, Rodman too, decided not to travel to Russia after the government strongly advised against him traveling there.
Since then, Griner’s wife, Cherelle, told CBS’s Gayle King that that first August phone call with Griner after she was first detained was “delightful.”
“She’s OK,” Cherelle recalled thinking at the sound of her wife’s voice and added: “We can survive this.”
But according to reports, the second phone call was described by Cherelle as “the most disturbing phone call” she’s ever experienced.
As per reports, the minute she hung up the phone, she said she began crying and didn’t leave her bed for days.
“You could hear that she was not OK… you could hear that she was at the max [suffering] that day, and there was nothing I could do. At that point, I didn’t know if she had anything left in her tank to continue to wake up every day and be in a place where she has no one,” Cherelle told King.
Cherelle said that when she saw photos of Griner handcuffed, sullen, and gaunt as she passed through Russian courthouses prior to her sentencing, she could tell “she’s not herself.”
She said that she knows Griner is being as strong as she possibly can be while locked up in a Russian prison and isolated from her friends and family, but she also cannot fathom that even at her “absolute weakest moment in life.”
Cherelle added: “She’s very afraid about being left and forgotten in Russia or just completely used to the point of her detriment. She’s saying things to me like, ‘My life just don’t even matter no more. I feel like my life doesn’t matter. Y’all don’t see me. Y’all don’t see the need to get me back home.'”
But despite how negative things looked, it didn’t stop Griner from celebrating her thirty-second birthday in prison.
She shared a statement with her supporters.
“Thank you everyone for fighting so hard to get me home,” Griner said in a statement through her lawyer Maria Blagovolina, as per CNN.
“All the support and love are definitely helping me.”
However, Griner’s appeal was denied in court, TMZ reported.
The WNBA star wasn’t physically present during the hearing on October 25, but she was present via videoconference, where she was inside a prison cell.
Griner and her team of attorneys hoped for the court to overturn a previous ruling in the case.
If not, then at least reduce the prison sentence.
Her attorney strongly argued that her prison sentence didn’t fit the crime she committed.
However, they weren’t expecting to win the hearing in court, as they stated that they did not “expect any miracles to happen.”
Griner’s lawyer, Alexander Boykov, opened up about her daily routine while incarcerated.
“They go to sleep around 10 p.m. and that’s when the lights turn off and the television’s turned off,” he said.
“They watch television, they prepare themselves food, they read, and that’s basically it.
“Every day is the same.
“There’s no gym, no runway, no basketball court,” Boykov said.
A lack of autonomy, plus being denied her favorite activities is making Griner’s stay sound pretty miserable.
But things then got worse for Griner…
Griner’s lawyers reportedly lost contact with her after she was transferred over to a Russian penal colony.
The transfer has been something her family and legal team have feared ever since she was convicted back in August.
A penal colony was described by many to be much worse than a detention center.
Prisoners are forced to do manual labor, and it’s much harder for inmates to stay in contact with the outside world.
Griner’s legal team was not aware of her transfer until after it occurred.
Griner’s agent, Lindsay Colas, released a statement at the time, saying the number one concern was her client’s health and well-being.
“We are thankful for everyone’s support, and hope that as we near nine months of detention, that BG and all wrongfully detained Americans will be shown mercy and returned home to their families for the holidays,” Colas said.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also released a statement about Griner’s transfer.
“Every minute that Brittney Griner must endure wrongful detention in Russia is a minute too long,” he wrote.
“As the Administration continues to work tirelessly to secure her release, the President has directed the Administration to prevail on her Russian captors to improve her treatment and the conditions she may be forced to endure in a penal colony.”
Since then, horrifying details of Griner’s location emerged.
“The notorious penal colony is known as a rat-infested sweatshop for prisoners, some of whom have lost fingers during long hours at their sewing machines. To deal with the rat population, the guards enlisted stray cats, which were later discarded into furnaces to keep their numbers down, according to a 2019 Radio Free Europe report,” the Daily Mail reported.
“Inmates work from 12 to 16 hours a day with lunch and toilet breaks,” the BBC reports. “Daily quotas are set very high, but one official salary is normally shared by several inmates. As a result, inmate workers only get a pay of several hundred roubles a month.”
“I worked as a seamstress and there is a law: if you do not fulfill the production rate, you are beaten,” former inmate Irina Noskova confirmed.
The US Department released a statement following the update.
“We are aware of reports of her location, and in frequent contact with Ms. Griner’s legal team,” the statement reads.
“However, the Russian Federation has still failed to provide any official notification for such a move of a U.S. citizen, which we strongly protest. The Embassy has continued to press for more information about her transfer and current location.”
Griner was reportedly living a “miserable” life in the new penal colony.
Some believed her harsh sentencing had something to do with the west’s reaction to the war in Ukraine…
And that she was being kept as a high-profile hostage by Russia.
Marina Alexandrova, an expert in Russian prisons, gave some insight into Griner’s daily life there…
“Her life will be very difficult,” she said. “It will be terrible.”
Inmates are allegedly forced to wake up at 6 am before being fed milk porridge, bread, and tea after which they are sent off to work…
During the day they were only allowed a short lunch and an hour of free time before being made to go to bed.
Griner’s lawyers added in a statement: “Brittney is doing as well as could be expected and trying to stay strong as she adapts to a new environment.
“Considering that this is a very challenging period for her, there will be no further comments from us.”
But then, in a shocking turn of events, Griner was released from Russian custody, NBC News reported.
This came after the Biden administration allegedly negotiated her release.
The U.S. made a trade with Russia, to free Griner in exchange for the Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, who has been serving time here in America.
There’s no doubt her family and friends were happy to see her being released from Russian custody just weeks before Christmas.
But before her release, we all knew Griner was living a rough life in prison.
We recently got a glimpse of how rough it was for the WNBA star.
The images, which according to the New York Post were distributed by Russian News Agency TASS, showed the tiny bed Griner slept in, as well as the bland-looking meals she ate everyday at Women’s Penal Colony No 2 in Mordovia, Russia.
In the images, Griner could be seen wearing green prisoner clothes, and her long braided hair was trimmed off.
In another photo, Griner could be seen making her twin bed in a communal bedroom.
But considering how tall she is, she had to constantly bend almost completely in half in order to pull the bedsheets and blankets.
Her bed also featured her ID photo, identifying her bed.
You can see the images here.
But the world finally got the news it was hoping for, as Griner was released from prison.
She was released in a one-for-one prisoner swap for international arms dealer Viktor Bout on Thursday, CBS News reported.
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, shared an emotional tribute to everyone who helped with the cause.
“I’m humbled by their hearts,” she wrote.
“To care for another, a stranger to some, a friend to some— is humanity in its purest form! As BG and I start our journey to heal our minds, bodies, and spirits— I wanted to personally say thank you to some of the hands; seen and unseen, that helped make it possible for me to see my wife again!”
You can see the post here.
Griner also opened up on her flight home, saying “I have been in prison for 10 months now. I want to talk.”
According to reports, Griner’s envoy, Roger Carstens, said: “She moved right past me and went to every member on that crew, looked them in the eyes, shook their hands and asked about them, got their names, making a personal connection with them.
“It was really amazing.
“I was left with the impression this is an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person.”
Adding: “But above all, authentic. I hate the fact that I had to meet her in this manner, but I actually felt blessed having had a chance to get to know her.”
Following Griner’s release, everyone has been waiting to hear what she had to say.
“The last 10 months have been a battle at every turn,” she said in a statement on her Instagram. “I dug deep to keep my faith and it was the love from so many of you that helped keep me going. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone for your help.”
“I also want to make one thing very clear: I intend to play basketball for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury this season, and in doing so, I look forward to being able to say ‘thank you’ to those of you who advocated, wrote, and posted for me in person soon!”
You can read her full statement here.
She took to social media to urge fans to send notes to Whelan, an American citizen who remains incarcerated in Russia.
Paul Whelan, 52 from Michigan, was given a 16-year jail sentence in 2020 after being arrested in Moscow on suspicion of spying in 2018.
Griner said that the letters she received during her 10-month imprisonment encouraged her to stay optimistic, and gave her hope during her time there.
“Your letters helped me to not lose hope during a time where I was full of regret and vulnerable in ways I could have never imagined. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Because of you I never lost hope,” she wrote in a post on Instagram.
“Your letters were also bigger than uplifting me,” she continued. “They showed me the power of collective hands. Together, we can do hard things. I’m living proof of that.”
”My family’s whole and now, thanks to you, we are fortunate to get to spend the holidays together. However, there remain too many families with loved ones wrongfully detained.”
Griner then urged her followers to support Whelan, who’s been in Russian captivity for four years over accusations of espionage, by doing the same for him.
With all the support she received from her letters, Griner believes that writing to Whelan could help him too.
She included a mailing address that his family has made available.
“I hope you’ll join me in writing to Paul Whelan and continuing to advocate for other Americans to be rescued and returned to their families,” she wrote.
You can read her post here.
Griner was then honored as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People.
The magazine included six athletes on the list: Mikaela Shiffrin, Iga Swiątek, Leo Messi, Patrick Mahomes, Kylian Mbappe, and Brittney Griner.
Swiątek and Mbappe were classified as “innovators,” Mahomes and Messi, “titans,” Mikaela Shiffrin a “pioneer,” and Brittney Griner an “icon.”
“BG’s wrongful detainment brought attention to issues like the inequities in pay for women athletes, which sometimes compel us to put ourselves in dangerous situations to maximize our financial worth,” former WNBA star and five-time Olympic gold medalist Sue Bird wrote.
“It brought to light the dozens of Americans wrongfully detained around the world, and BG continues to use her platform as a sports superstar to advocate for their release.”
“It speaks to the power of the women who rallied around her — Black women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, our WNBA community — and who made certain her name was never forgotten, that she’d return home. These are the women who get sh*t done.”
However, Griner’s first appearance back in the WNBA was met with a rather lukewarm response from fans.
And Phoenix Mercury head coach Vanessa Nygaard was clearly disappointed.
“Come on now, LA,” Nygaard told reporters.
“We didn’t sell out the arena for [Griner]? Like, I expected more, to be honest. It was great, it was loud. But how was it not a sellout? How was it not a sellout?”
However, it seems this sentiment was not reflected by Griner.
“It was nice to be back on the court and in a real game and everything. The love from the fans who came out was amazing and the players. I definitely felt it and I felt it when I was there,” she said, via Fox News. “It was nice, but performance-wise, it wasn’t good enough because I couldn’t help the team with a dub.”