The Russian court's own 690-page file contradicts the case against him. Each finding below names the page it comes from.
Michael "Travis" Leake was detained in Moscow on June 6, 2023. Moscow's Khamovnichesky District Court sentenced him to 13 years on July 18, 2024, on five counts under Articles 30, 228 and 228.1 of the Russian Criminal Code. He pleaded not guilty. His counsel asked for acquittal "due to the absence of a crime event."
What follows is not an argument. It is what the file itself records, with the page numbers, and what it does not contain.
No fingerprint or DNA examination of anything seized. No data from any phone or computer of his. No bank statement. No messages. No surveillance. No photograph or video of the search.
Source: court file, Vol. 3, l.d. 14-15 (charging decision); defense closing argument, pp. 11-17.
At trial, the witness who ties him to the sale charges said police told her to say more about him than she had.
Nothing seized was examined for fingerprints or DNA. No such test appears in the 690 pages of the court file.
Police took his first statement with no lawyer present, in the 43 hours before any formal detention record was made.
Police logged a black iPhone in the search protocol. It is absent from the evidence inventory and the evidence decision that followed.
No drug found in his home was charged as intended for sale.
The bundle police attributed to him matches the courier's own batch.
The civilian witnesses to the search arrived after the police were already inside.
His complaint that he was coerced was sent to the district police division where the officers he accused worked.
The judge who ruled the search of his apartment lawful on June 9, 2023 was the judge who tried him.