Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle, described their most recent phone call from detention in Russia as “disturbing.”
Cherelle and Brittney have spoken twice by phone since the Russians detained Brittney for bringing vape cartridges through a Moscow airport. The first was in August and left Cherelle feeling positive. But the second had a chilling effect, she said during an interview on CBS News that aired on Thursday.
RUSSIAN COURT SET GRINER APPEAL FOR LATER THIS MONTH
“It was just so delightful just to hear her voice,” Cherelle Griner said of the first call, adding that it left her thinking her wife “could survive this.”
Cherelle Griner said that during their second call she could tell that Brittney, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a nine-year prison sentence in August, “was not OK,” adding, “If you think about just a person’s suffering and when they have suffered to a max … she was at the max that day.”
“There was nothing I could do,” she added. “It was like 30-second to 2-minute range of her just sitting on the phone just literally in tears, just crying. It’s just the most still, I think, moment I’ve just ever shared with my wife. I didn’t have words. I don’t know if she has anything left in her tank to continue to wake up every day and be in a place where she has no one.”
Cherelle Griner said she cried for two or three days straight after they disconnected, describing the interaction with Brittney as “the most disturbing phone call I’ve ever experienced.”
The basketball superstar, who has played basketball in Russia during the WNBA’s offseason since 2014, will return to court on Oct. 25 for her appeal.
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During the trial, she admitted she was responsible for the cartridges but said it was an accident. Despite her acknowledgment, the United States considers Griner to be “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act, the relevant federal law. That decision includes factors such as whether the detaining country is looking to use the U.S. citizen as a political pawn and whether they’re being treated fairly in the respective judicial systems.
The State Department said in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to get her and Paul Whelan, another American the government considers wrongfully detained, home, though there appears to be little movement on a deal since then. The Biden administration has not said anything to indicate their return is imminent, though administrations historically haven’t until wrongfully detained citizens are on their way back.
