"We can confirm Maria Butina is currently assigned to federal correctional institution (FCI) Tallahassee and has a projected release date of October 25, 2019," the spokesperson said on Thursday.
Butina's lawyer Robert Driscoll told Sputnik that he spoke to his client earlier in the day and confirmed that she is still at the Tallahassee, Florida prison.
Driscoll noted that two US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers will accompany Russian national Maria Butina all the way back to Moscow after she is released from prison.
Driscoll said the US government has not shared Butina’s flight information but she would likely be transferred to the nearest major international airport - in Atlanta - and then to some destination in Europe and finally to Moscow.
"I suppose she should be able to make a phone call before the last leg of flight," Driscoll said.
US authorities arrested Butina in mid-2018 and sentenced her to eighteen months in prison for conspiring to act as a foreign agent without notifying the Attorney General.
Butina signed a plea agreement after being held in solitary confinement for a prolonged period of time and requested a sentence of time served.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has called Butina's sentence a disgrace of the US judicial system and has accused the court of carrying out a political order. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Butina’s indictment is unjustified because she was not tasked to perform any mission on behalf of the Russian government.
