News

Professor suffers Russian mugging

Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.

Related stories:

• Student mugged at gunpoint on campus-area intersection (November 12, 2002)
• Mugging attempted at Bascom Hall (September 15, 2008)
• Muggers foiled by lack of possessions (February 2, 2010)
• Student mugged on Charter Street (October 20, 2009)
• Student reports alleged attack on Mifflin Street (September 20, 2007)

Also by Associated Press:

• UPDATED: CFACT may sue UW if its funding isn't restored (June 29, 2009)

Sharing tools:

E-mail this article:

Your e-mail address:

Recipient e-mail address:

Optional message:

Share on:

• Facebook
• Digg
• Newsvine
• reddit
• StumbleUpon
• delicious
• Google
• Yahoo! My Web
• BlogMarks
• Linkroll
• Simpy

• Spurl
• Connotea
• Fark
• Feed Me Links

• Magnolia
• BlinkList
• Sphere
• LinkedIn

• Furl
• Technorati
• AddToAny
• Permalink

(AP) — A University of Wisconsin professor has returned to the United States and is recovering from being drugged, robbed and dumped in a remote Russian park.

David Bethea, 59, chairman of the university’s Slavic languages department, said he has visited Russia more than two dozen times but made mistakes he hopes other tourists can learn from.

A cab driver who offered him a cup of coffee apparently laced it with a date-rape-like drug, he said. A stranger found him in a remote park in St. Petersburg about 12 hours later.

Bethea’s liver had dangerously high levels of toxicity. He spent eight days in a St. Petersburg hospital before being flown to UW Hospital on Nov. 1. He spent a night there and then two weeks in bed at home. He still tires easily, he said.

Bethea thinks he was a random target of a robbery ring. He vaguely remembers several people taking his leather jacket, watch, wedding ring, cell phone and wallet. They later charged several thousands of dollars on his credit cards for items such as fur coats.

Russian police interviewed him, but no arrest has been made in the case, Bethea said.

News of his disappearance sped through academic blogs after he failed to show at a conference the morning after he was robbed. Colleagues panicked.

“This kind of thing isn’t unheard of in the Wild West that is the new Russia,” said Judith Kornblatt, a Slavic languages professor at UW. “I thought the worst.”

But Bethea said the experience hasn’t turned him off Russia.

“This is going to make me more cautious,” he said, “but it hasn’t soured me on the people or the place.”