MONROE, La. (AP) — A lawyer for a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher charged with trying to smuggle frog embryos into Boston asked Thursday that she be brought back to Massachusetts, three months after she was taken to a Louisiana immigration detention center.
Kseniia Petrova, 30, was already facing deportation. She was charged Wednesday with smuggling goods into the United States, shortly after a federal district court judge had set a hearing on her release. A judge in Louisiana went over the charges during a hearing Thursday.
“She has requested a transfer to Massachusetts, where the complaint was filed,” her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, said in a statement. “We expect federal authorities to transfer her to Massachusetts in the next few weeks.”
If convicted, Petrova faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Petrova had been vacationing in France, where she stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples to be used for research.
As she passed through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Boston Logan International Airport, Petrova was questioned about the samples. Petrova told The Associated Press in an interview last month that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak in anything. After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled.
Romanovsky said Customs and Border Protection officials had no legal basis for canceling Kseniia’s visa and detaining her. He called her transfer from ICE to criminal custody “an attempt by the government to justify its outrageous and legally indefensible position that this scientist working for the U.S. on cures for cancer and aging research has somehow become a danger to the community.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on the social platform X that Petrova was detained after “lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country.” They allege messages on her phone “revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.”
Harvard said in a statement that the university “continues to monitor the situation.”
Petrova told the AP she left her country to avoid conflict or possible political repression. She fled after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, marking the start of a bloody three-year war.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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