Michael "Travis" Leake, an American citizen and U.S. Air Force veteran from Bakersfield, California, has been held in Russia since the night of June 6, 2023. He is serving 13 years at IK-6, a penal colony in Vladimir Oblast.
We ask the Secretary of State to review the record and determine that he is wrongfully detained under the Levinson Act, 22 U.S.C. § 1741. The Department has not designated him.
The sale charges trace to one witness, a woman police stopped with drug bundles on June 5, 2023, and to a statement Travis gave two days later without a lawyer, which he later retracted. His name first enters the file in a report written that day by the operative who took her statement. At trial she said operatives told her to report more than she had, and that he could not have had that quantity of drugs at home. No drug found in his home was charged as intended for sale.
The file records his detention at 19:00 on June 6. The formal detention record is dated 14:20 on June 8. Police took his first statement in between. No fingerprint or DNA examination appears anywhere in the 690-page file. The search protocol lists a black iPhone; it is absent from every evidence record that follows. The judge who ruled the search of his apartment lawful on June 9, 2023 was the judge who tried him.
Every court-record fact on this page carries its page number. We ask the Department to check them.
The standard
The Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act is the law the United States uses when an American detained abroad may need more than routine consular support. A wrongful-detention determination moves a case to the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, the office built to bring Americans home. The statute lists the factors the Secretary considers. They are guideposts, not a scorecard. The rows below carry what the record shows.
§ 1741(a)(1)
Credible information indicating innocence of the detained individual
Nothing seized was examined for fingerprints or DNA; at trial the witness behind the sale charges said police told her to report more than she had.
Finding 02 →§ 1741(a)(2)
The individual is being detained solely or substantially because he or she is a United States national
As counsel recounted her testimony, officers were "slightly euphoric" at arresting an American. Court officials and state television framed him as an American military figure from the day of his arrest.
Myth vs. record →§ 1741(a)(3)
The individual is being detained solely or substantially to influence United States Government policy or to secure economic or political concessions
In June 2026 a Russian federal television host proposed on air planting drugs on visiting Americans to refill the "exchange fund."
§ 1741(a)(5)
The individual is being detained in violation of the laws of the detaining country
Russian law requires two civilian witnesses present at a search and a detention record within three hours. The witnesses were fetched after he was in custody; the record came 43 hours later.
Finding 03 →§ 1741(a)(6)
Independent nongovernmental organizations or journalists have raised legitimate questions about the innocence of the detained individual
Rolling Stone's April 2025 investigation reported the questions about the charges; NPR and NBC News corrected the "paratrooper" claim.
§ 1741(a)(7)
The United States mission in the country where the individual is being detained has received credible reports that the detention is a pretext for an illegitimate purpose
The U.S. Embassy holds counsel's closing argument, the photograph of his injuries his lawyer handed it, and its own readout of the April 2025 appeal hearing.
§ 1741(a)(8)
The individual is detained in a country where the Department of State has determined in its annual human rights reports that the judicial system is not independent or impartial, is susceptible to corruption, or is incapable of rendering just verdicts
The State Department's Russia report says judges "usually did not suppress confessions taken without a lawyer present."
Finding 03 →§ 1741(a)(9)
The individual is being detained in inhumane conditions
Attacked on camera in January 2024 and sent to solitary himself; a tooth lost for want of a dentist; more than three years in custody.
§ 1741(a)(10)
Due process of law has been sufficiently impaired so as to render the detention arbitrary
A statement taken without counsel in custody nobody recorded; a phone that vanished; a torture complaint handed to the men it accused; the judge who approved the search tried the case.
Finding 10 →§ 1741(a)(11)
United States diplomatic engagement is likely to secure the release of the detained individual
Whelan, Griner, Gershkovich, Fogel, Karelina and Gilman came home through negotiation, not Russian courts.
Filings on record
Renewed request for designation, February 12, 2025 (PDF). A further request was made in September 2026.
Questions officials ask
What is the Levinson Act?
22 U.S.C. § 1741. It lets the Secretary of State determine that a U.S. national is wrongfully detained abroad and moves the case to the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.
Is Travis Leake designated?
No. The State Department has not designated him. His advocates have asked it to review the record and do so.
How does the court record bear on the Act's factors?
Each row above links to the finding in the Russian court file that speaks to it, with the page number.
What do his advocates ask of Congress?
Write to the Secretary of State requesting a fresh review of the case on the record, and say his name when Americans held in Russia are discussed.