Russian Businessman Grows ‘Health Drink’ In US Prison, Gets 90-Day Punitive Confinement

Russian businessman Viktor Bout’s stay in the U.S. prison was prolonged for 40 days after he had been put into punitive confinement for 90 days.

Bout was sent into confinement after he had been allegedly found making alcohol drinks in prison. Serving a 26 year-long jail term, the Russian prisoner at the Marion penitentiary in Illinois claimed that he was growing kombucha or tea mushroom.

Bout's lawyer Alexey Tarassov told reporters Monday that his client had been denied the right to contact his lawyer during the inquiry.

"But one day a disciplinary officer came carrying a gadget of some kind and pointed it at the kombucha and then declared that the mushroom contained some percentage of alcohol," Tarassov said. "A disciplinary inquiry was opened and Bout was found guilty of making alcoholic drinks on the compound of the penitentiary and denied the right to contact the outside world for 90 days.”

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin earlier refused to accept a U.N. Security Council resolution as new evidence to overturn his conviction. The resolution lifted sanctions against two dozen individuals including Bout on Sept. 2.

But the U.S. judge thought there was "no basis to make such a motion." "It (the lifting sanctions) had nothing to do with the case at the time of the trial," Sputnik News quoted Scheindlin as saying.

Bout is serving the jail term on charges of illegal arms sale. A U.S. court sentenced him, among others, in 2011 for providing arms to rebels for the purpose of killing American citizens. According to Russian News Agency TASS, Bout was growing kombucha for maintain health to make “tea kvass,” a sour-sweet drink.

According to the Russian prisoner, fellow-inmates and wardens tasted the drink and praised the “functional beverage.”