Trevor Reed’s family says his prison release ‘almost as good as the day he was born’
The parents of the U.S. Marine from Fort Worth who was released from a Russian prison Wednesday don’t know how long it will be before they see their son and they’re concerned for his health, but they’re overjoyed to know he’s coming home.
Trevor Reed was released after 2 1/2 years in captivity, in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.
At a news conference Wednesday, parents Joey Reed and Paula Reed had big smiles on their faces as the walked out of their Granbury home wearing Camp David polo shirts and walked up to the microphones.
“Today is almost as good as the day he was born,” Paula Reed said.
The family received a phone call early Wednesday morning, they said. The man on the other end of the line asked them if they’d like to speak to Trevor. Of course they did.
Trevor Reed’s parents said the first time they spoke to him, he didn’t seem himself. He seemed sedated. But when they spoke to him later in the day they said he was more like himself. He’d eaten, had some water and while he “looked terrible,” his parents said, he was obviously in better shape than he had been.
It was like a scene out of a movie when it happened, his family said. They saw video of the prisoner exchange after the fact. Two planes, parked close to each other. Two prisoners, walking past one another wordlessly, making brief eye contact and then being greeted by their countrymen and helped onto a different plane.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said the negotiations between the United States and Russia were “difficult” and full of decisions he did “not take lightly.”
Russian police accused Trevor Reed of assaulting an officer in August 2019, a week before he was supposed to return to Texas after visiting Russia. Reed’s family says Russian officials fabricated the charges to use him as a bargaining chip with the U.S. government.
“Our family has been living a nightmare,” the Reed family in a statement Wednesday. “Today, our prayers have been answered and Trevor is safely on his way back to the United States.”
For more than two years, the 30-year-old Reed was held in a prison camp in Mordovia, about 350 miles southeast of Moscow. He was sentenced to nine years there.
The investigation and trial, marred by inconsistent statements from Moscow police and the involvement of the FSB, the Russian equivalent of the CIA, have been discredited by U.S. officials.
The Reed family thanked Biden for his efforts, also expressing gratitude for dozens of other individuals including politicians, lawyers and translators who helped with their son’s release.
They also asked people to remember that what happened to Trevor was the fault of the Russian government, not the Russian people, and for Americans to be kind to Russians they may know or run across who are living here.
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 8:12 PM.