VORONEZH, July 15 US citizen Robert Gilman, serving a sentence for assaulting a police officer, said at a court hearing that he wanted to bypass the prison system and end up in a psychiatric hospital, correspondent reports.
At the hearing on the merits of the case, which began on June 27, the court heard the prosecution and the testimony of two injured inspectors. In addition, the court requested information about the state of health of Gilman, who stated several times at the hearing that he had been poisoned, and whether the American was denied medical care. The court hearing was postponed to July 15. 
Gilman stated at the hearing that the victims, the colony inspector and the investigator of the Investigative Committee, teased him, insulting his father, a disabled person, and the pre-trial detention center inspector caused him pain in the genital area during a personal search. Gilman also insists that he was poisoned in prison.
«I thought I could go to a mental hospital… I tried to bypass the prison system, but I didn't have time,» Gilman said at the hearing.
According to investigators, Gilman punched colony inspector No. 2 in the head twice: on September 30, 2023, during a cell check and on October 16, when returning to the cell. In the same colony, on October 23, an American “dealt at least six blows” to an Investigative Committee investigator who arrived to conduct investigative actions with him, causing a concussion. Gilman was transferred to a pre-trial detention center, where on November 14, during a personal search, he “deliberately struck the inspector in the face with his right fist.”
Gilman pleaded guilty to beating the victims.
As the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported, on January 17, 2022, a drunken American caused a brawl in a train carriage and was taken to the duty station in Voronezh, where he kicked a policeman several times. A case was opened against Gilman for using violence against a government official, and he was sent to a pre-trial detention center. In October 2022, the Central District Court of Voronezh sentenced Gilman to 4.5 years in a general regime colony — that’s exactly what the prosecutor’s office requested. The defense filed an appeal, the Voronezh Regional Court reduced the term to 3.5 years in May 2023.