Russian court sentences U.S. citizen Gilman to over 7 years in prison on assault charges

VORONEZH, Russia — A Russian court on Monday sentenced U.S. citizen and ex-Marine Robert Gilman to seven years and one month in prison for assaulting a prison official and a state investigator, the local prosecutor’s office said.

Gilman, 30, is already serving a 3-1/2-year sentence for attacking a police officer while drunk, a charge he was convicted of in October 2022.

Prosecutors in Voronezh, a city about 300 miles (500 km) south of Moscow where Gilman is incarcerated, said he had attacked a prison employee and a state investigator on separate occasions in the autumn of 2023.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact a lawyer for Gilman. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Russian state news agency RIA said Gilman, whose lawyers have previously told the TASS state news agency that he had come to Russia to study and obtain citizenship, had pleaded guilty to all the charges.

RIA cited Gilman as telling the court last week that he had been forced to use violence after the prison inspector had caused pain to his genitalia and after the investigator had insulted his father.

Gilman is one of at least 10 U.S. nationals behind bars in Russia over two months after a prisoner swap between Moscow and the West on Aug. 1 freed 24 people, including three Americans.