A U.S. Air Force veteran, he is serving 13 years in a Russian penal colony. The Russian court's own file contradicts the case against him.
He counts the days in his letters home.
Four findings from the 690-page court file. Each links to the page it comes from.
At trial, the witness who ties him to the sale charges said police told her to say more about him than she had.
Nothing seized was examined for fingerprints or DNA. No such test appears in the 690 pages of the court file.
Police took his first statement with no lawyer present, in the 43 hours before any formal detention record was made.
Police logged a black iPhone in the search protocol. It is absent from the evidence inventory and the evidence decision that followed.
Over the summer of 2026, from IK-6 in Melekhovo, Travis recorded a three-minute appeal to President Donald J. Trump.
"I am sorry I am not a journalist. I am sorry I am not a basketball player. I am sorry I am not somebody that is important. But what I am not is a drug dealer, and there is no reason for me to be here."
The search runs from 7 p.m. to 10:02 p.m. The charging decision records his detention at 7 p.m. Day 1.
The lead operative takes a written statement from him through a student interpreter appointed that day. No lawyer is present.
Dated 2:20 p.m., 43 hours after the recorded detention. He writes on it that he disagrees. His first lawyer is appointed.
The same judge will later try the case.
The Khamovnichesky District Court sentences him to 13 years in a strict-regime colony. Day 409.
From IK-6, a three-minute appeal.
And to determine that he is wrongfully detained under the Levinson Act, 22 U.S.C. § 1741. The Department has not designated him.
Born in Bakersfield, California. U.S. Air Force, 1989–90, a heating-and-air-conditioning mechanic in Arizona. A bachelor's in English, a master's, then Moscow: teaching English, fronting a metal band, managing Louna and bringing them to tour the United States, a segment with Anthony Bourdain. A known, visible American in Moscow's music world. That made him easy to find. It did not make him a trafficker.