I was restoring the KTracy.com archives from June 2010 this morning and stumbled across a very vague blog article I wrote thanking then-Representative Pete Visclosky and his staff. At the time, due to the sensitive nature of the situation, I didn't want to spill any details at all. 14 years later, I think it's safe to tell the story.

About a week before writing that post, a comment was written on a post about the Russian constitution and a private e-mail was sent to me from someone who claimed to be a long time reader of KTracy.com. He never commented or messaged me before, so I was very skeptical when he asked for help. I was even more skeptical because of the seemingly outrageously peculiarity of his situation.

This reader was an American citizen from California who had been detained in Russia for over two years without a trial or charges being filed against him. His mother, also a California resident, has been entirely ignored by her Congressman. As I recall, there may have been a personal spat between them before this happened.

Now, every fiber of my being was telling me this was a scam. Russia, even in 2010, had a very brutal prison system and I could not imagine how this young man could get on the internet at all, let alone comment on my blog and e-mail me, without being detected by the guards. Furthermore, of all the people he could ask for help, why in the world would he pick me?

Still, in the two or three messages he got to me, he never asked for anything material. He never said, "If you send me $800, I'll be able to bribe the prison guard to sneak me out of here and buy a flight back to the United States!" I remember my cursor as sitting over the "Mark as SPAM" icon in my Thunderbird inbox, but I couldn't press the button. The Air Force really beats into our heads the "no man left behind" mantra; and the seriousness of this situation, if true, was impossible to ignore.

So, I decided to e-mail then-Senator Richard Lugar and my local Congressman Pete Visclosky. I was somewhat skeptical I would get a response from either. As much as I loved him as my Senator and lamented his primary loss in 2012, Richard Lugar was difficult to make authentic contact with. A couple months after reaching out, you would get a copy-pasted letter in the mail detailing Richard Lugar's policy position on a topic related to your message to him or his staff.

As little hope as I had for Richard Lugar's team to reach out, I was even more doubtful about hearing from Pete Visclosky's staff. Pete Visclosky was a Democrat and I personally organized at least two pretty large protests against him during the Obamacare debate. I vividly remember the crowd outside one of his autumn town halls in Chesterton, IN being so large, that the car sent to get him couldn't get close enough to pick him up; so his staffers needed to act like body guards and escort him a block away with a mob of hundreds of us screaming "READ THE BILL!" in unison. I even bragged about doing it. This happened just months before reaching out with what clearly seemed like a too-fantastic-to-be-true-story.

Evan Bayh was on his way out, so I was already researching whether I wanted to reach out to the late Jackie Walorski in the next Congressional District and figuring out how to get a hold of anyone who I was mildly acquainted with from the State Department while I worked in the National Counterterrorism Center. However, within five minutes, Pete Visclosky's chief of staff called me and asked me for everything I had, including the prisoner's name, his mother's name, their address, the name of the facility he was being held in, e-mail addresses, IP address, and every word the guy sent. The chief of staff was insanely professional about all of it and sounded even less skeptical than I was. It was nice knowing it was being taken seriously in the event that it was real.

Which was good... BECAUSE IT WAS REAL!

Convinced this was fake, I stopped worrying about it. However, about a week later, I received another phone call. A staffer asked me to hold, and he had me on hold for like 10 minutes, but I recall talking to Pete Visclosky himself after waiting.

The US Consulate was aware of the case and now working towards his release. The situation was complicated however by the young man's status as a dual citizen of Russia and the United States. The boy's mother was an American citizen; which makes him an American citizen, too... despite what the Obama Birther conspiracy nuts say. However, the man's father was a Russian citizen and thus, he was also a Russian citizen. He grew up in the United States and was either visiting or moving in with his father when he was arrested, although we weren't sure for what just yet. However, the Russians had determined he was a risk to himself and suffering from some kind of mental condition; which also complicated the entire case.

Visclosky asked that I not write about this on my blog, given the sensitivity of the situation and fearful that outside attention would harden Russia's position on his release and return to the United States.

I agreed, and a short time later wrote that very vague thank you to him and his staff without revealing any details.

Obviously, I'm not releasing the man's name on this blog for several reasons, his privacy being foremost. However, he was eventually released back to the United States without any fanfare and has successfully managed to keep his name out of social media.

If I ever talk to him again, I would love to learn exactly how he managed to e-mail me and leave comments on my blog from a Russian prison for the criminally insane.

Regardless, I sincerely hope his life back in the United States is going better than his life in Russia went.