Some new details on Brittney Griner’s imprisonment in Russia have been revealed following news of the WNBA star reaching a deal with Disney and ESPN that will see a documentary released.
Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February 2022 after cannabis was found in her possession and was sentenced to nine years in Russian prison, where she remained until December.
ESPN’s T.J. Quinn has made some fresh revelations pertaining to Griner’s arrest. Speaking in a video attached to a lengthy article on the matter, he revealed that Brittney had passed through two TSA checkpoints with the vape cartridges that landed her in a Russian prison and there had been no attempts to conceal them. U.S. authorities were of the view that they had been put into her bag inadvertently.
According to Quinn, Griner’s teammates on Russian outfit UMMC Ekaterinburg found out about her arrest six days later. They ended up in a heated argument over Russian drug laws, with the Americans on the team feeling like they were being lectured at a time when they just wanted to commiserate.
Former NBA star Carmelo Anthony would attend a social justice coalition meeting and subsequently push for the NBA to back a video showing support for Griner, which league commissioner Adam Silver agreed to. He also insisted on it being shown during a primetime broadcast.
Quinn notes that Brittney was assigned to a sewing shop after she entered prison, where an older woman made her a custom prison uniform as she knew the basketball player would not be able to find one to fit her 6ft 9in frame. The uniform is said to have had a special lining for warmth and secret pockets for contraband snacks.
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Lastly, Griner’s agent is said to have reached out to UFC president Dana White to ask if he could contact fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov to plead on the player’s behalf as he is friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
White then told the agent that he had just spoken to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who said he was thinking of flying to Russia to take Griner back home himself. The agent would relay the information to the Biden Administration, who had doubts over the plan but was willing to support it if that’s what it took.
Griner was eventually released on December 8 as part of a prisoner exchange that saw the U.S. turn arms dealer Viktor Bout loose.
