3 SJ women, 1 teen released from Russia after detainment

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Three San Jose women and a teenager from Chico arrived back in the United States Tuesday after being detained in Russia last week.

They're relieved to be back on American soil. They told ABC7 News they think this could be a deliberate attempt to derail U.S. Russia youth exchange programs and could be an indication that a new Cold War era could be emerging.

The ordeal is over now that they're back on American soil, but what happened won't soon be forgotten.

"When you're getting escorted to the immigration services office in Russia, it's like whoa, what's going on," Quyen Ngo said.

Ngo and two other women from San Jose, plus an 18-year-old Chico High School student named Sterling Winter were on a goodwill mission to foster leadership skills among Russian youth.

On the second day, 60 Russians and the four Americans took a group picture. It turns out Russian police were secretly taking photos of their activities that would later show up in court as evidence against them.

The issue was over the Americans having tourist visas because Russian authorities said they needed business visas.

"Initially we thought you know they were just going to check our visas and it would be over, but it slowly escalated," Leadership Delegate Jennifer Phan said.

They had to appear in court three times, represented by non-English speaking attorneys.

"It was more of just like a fear of what's going to happen next, and we could never get a definitive answer," Sterling Winter said.

The United States Consulate in St. Petersburg and the embassy in Moscow offered assistance, but there was suspicion that they were targeted as part of a new hard line against the United States.

"They spent hours upon hours with tons of employees kind of drawing out this trial, so it just seemed like there had to be more to it than what met the eye," Group Leader Liana Randazzo said.

"There's a lot of that going on in their country where anything that's funded by international groups are heavily scrutinized in Russia," said Sterling's father Scott Winter.

This incident may put a wrinkle on plans to invite Russian students to the Bay Area in January.

"We ought to be having bridges, rather than chasms and I think something like this especially as you the media come out and broadcast this to the public that it doesn't add salt to the wounds that seem to be growing," Liana's father Joe Randazzo said.