Brittney Griner was desperate.
It was February 2022 and the WNBA star had been detained in the Russian capital of Moscow awaiting trial on drugs charges.
Facing a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years and with her options fast running out, Griner wrote to President Biden, pleading for his assistance in securing her release, as she explains in her new memoir, “Coming Home” (Penguin Random House).
“I’m terrified I might be here forever,” she wrote in a handwritten letter. “I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home.”
The letter, hand-delivered to the president on Independence Day 2022, also mentioned her father and his service in the US Marine Corps, including his two tours of duty in Vietnam.
“On the 4th of July, our family normally honors the service of those men who fought for our freedom, including my father who is a Vietnam War Veteran,” she continued.
“It hurts thinking about how I usually celebrate this day because freedom means something completely different to me this year.”
In her book, Griner reveals how a simple security check at a Moscow airport became a “gateway to hell.”
Written with bestselling author Michelle Burford (who co-authored memoirs by stars like Alicia Keys and Cicely Tyson), “Coming Home” is the story of a “geopolitical nightmare spanning 10 months” where Griner found herself “bewildered and isolated” while navigating a foreign legal system in a language she didn’t comprehend. “There’s no understanding. In the US, I can articulate what happened, how this happened,” she says. “[But] I didn’t plan to do this . . . it was a mistake, an accident.”
Though she was a six-time All Star in WNBA and a two-time Olympic gold medallist with the United States women’s team, Griner, like many other female players, often played abroad in the WBNA’s off-season to supplement her income.
In Russia, for example, she commanded a base salary of $1.2 million — five times what she earned in the WBNA.
In early 2022, Griner was due to join UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian Women’s Premier League, a team she had played for, without any trouble, in most of her off-seasons since 2014.
But when she arrived in Russia on February 17, she was stopped at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport when a customs sniffer dog indicated drugs in the player’s carry-on luggage.
A thorough search ensued at which point officers from the Russian Federal Customs Service discovered vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. Even though it was a product she had been prescribed by her doctor, Griner was taken into custody and charged with smuggling “narcotic drugs” into the country.
It was, says Griner, nothing more than a simple oversight but it proved anything but. “It’s so easy to have a mental lapse,” she says. “Granted, my mental lapse was on more of a grand scale.”
Seven days after Griner’s arrest, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine and, as the United States and its allies imposed sanctions on the Putin regime, suddenly Brittney Griner’s situation became immeasurably worse.
No longer was she just a basketball player facing minor drug charges in a foreign country, now she was a bargaining chip in a conflict with major multinational implications.
She was also entirely reliant on Russian lawyers to steer her through the complex local legal system. “I remember one time there was a stack of papers that [the translator] needed to translate for me. He took a brief look and then said: ‘Basically you are guilty,’ ” Griner recalls.
Griner’s lawyer was rock fan Alexander Boykov. As he worked on her case, he brought Griner books to keep her occupied, including a biography of Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee, a memoir by Southern rock legend Gregg Allman and another by the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards.
Held in a former orphanage in Khimki, Griner shared a cell with two local women also being held on narcotics charges.
While they spoke some English and could help her communicate with the prison staff, they could do little about her sleeping arrangements with her tiny, narrow bed less than ideal for her 6-foot-9 frame.
More than four months in detention would pass before Griner’s case came to trial. When she entered the courtroom, she did so holding a photo of her wife and college sweetheart, Cherelle.
As instructed, Griner pled guilty to the charges in the hope that the judge might offer a more lenient sentence.
But she could not have been more wrong.
Indeed, Griner was aghast when the judge read out her sentence.
Although the typical sentence for possession of such a small amount of cannabis was no more than 15 days, Griner was told she would spend nine years in an all-female prison. “[I would be] the first American woman ever to endure a Russian penal colony,” she notes.
She was also fined 1 million rubles (around US $15,000).
Not surprisingly, Griner’s head went into a spin. “I was thinking about my wife, I was thinking about what my family were going to think, what public opinion is thinking. I can see the headlines.
“I can visualize everything I’ve worked so hard for just crumbling away.”
In November 2022 Griner was transferred to Corrective Colony No. 2, or IK-2, a female penal colony in Yavas, around 300 miles east of Moscow, with a reputation for overcrowding, brutal wardens and long days of backbreaking work.
When she was shown to her bed, the mattress had a huge blood stain on it.
She also had little or no access to toilet paper or soap. “I felt less than human,” she recalled.
Indeed, of the 36 all-female penal colonies in Russia, IK-2 was considered one of the most inhospitable and in ‘Coming Home’, Griner charts not just the “emotional and physical anguish” she suffered during her time in detention (where she mostly worked in a sewing workshop), but also the effect her absence had on her friends and family back home in the United States.
Terrified that she “might be here forever” Griner also contemplated ending her life. “I just didn’t think I could get through what I needed to get through.”
Ten long months and an unsuccessful appeal would pass before there was finally some positive news.
On the morning of Dec. 8 2022, America awoke to the news: Brittney Griner was free.
A prisoner swap with Russia signed off by Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been arranged whereby convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout — the inspiration for the 2005 film “Lord of War” starring Nicolas Cage and serving a 25-year sentence in the US for arms smuggling — would be returned to his homeland in exchange for Griner’s freedom.
“Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner. She’s safe, she’s on a plane,” Biden posted on X.
“She’s on her way home.”
Today, 17 months after she was freed, Griner is looking forward to a new season with her team, the Phoenix Mercury. Finally reunited with wife Cherelle — with whom Griner is expecting a baby — there was just one thing that had kept her going through the darkest of days.
“Love,” she says.
