Griner made her final court appeal earlier in the day and said she had no intention of breaking the law by bringing cannabis oil vaping cartridges when she flew to Moscow in February to play basketball in the city of Yekaterinburg. “I want to apologize to my teammates, my club, my fans and the city [Yekaterinburg] for the mistake I made and the embarrassment I caused them,” Griner said, her voice cracking. “I also want to apologize to my parents, my siblings, the Phoenix Mercury organization back home, the amazing women of the WNBA, and my amazing wife back home.” He called it an “honest mistake”, adding:[I] I hope your decision will not end my life.” While summarizing the evidence and giving her findings, the judge said Griner, 31, brought illegal drugs into Russia. Griner’s translator whispered to her through the bar of the defendant’s cage what the judge quickly read. Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of 9-½ years in a case that reached the highest levels of US-Russia diplomacy. Under Russian law, Griner faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, but judges have wide discretion in sentencing. Attention will now turn to the high possibility of a prisoner exchange. Before her trial began in July, the US State Department designated Griner “unreasonably detained,” moving her case under the supervision of its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, effectively the government’s chief hostage negotiator. Then last week, in an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, urging him to accept a deal under which Griner and Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia for an espionage conviction, they would be released. .
