SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — A U.S. Navy veteran from San Diego County whose family said his only crime was falling in love has left Iran after nearly two years of detention. Michael White won his freedom as part of a deal that spared an American-Iranian physician any more time behind American bars.
Michael R. White was previously convicted of insulting Iran's supreme leader and posting private information online. He was the first American known to be imprisoned in Iran after President Donald Trump took office. Few other details are known about his case.
Once freed, White flew from Tehran to Zurich, where he was met by an American diplomat.
White's mother says “the nightmare is over” now that her son is out of Iranian hands.
“I am blessed to announce that the nightmare is over, and my son is safely in American custody and on his way home,” White’s mother, Joanne White, said in a statement obtained by AP News.
She thanked the State Department and Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and onetime New Mexico governor, for raising her son’s case with the Iranians.
Family spokesman Jonathan Franks told News 8 in Sept. 2019, Joanne White did not have any way to communicate with her son and relied on officials with the Swiss government who met with him when possible. The White House has never contacted her, he added.
At the time, Franks said Michael White, 46, recently had surgery to remove melanoma and his mother was concerned about his health, especially in the poor conditions in which he was being held in Iran.
Joanne White said her son, who lived in Imperial Beach, California, went to Iran to see a woman she described as his girlfriend and had booked a July 27, 2018 flight back home to San Diego via United Arab Emirates. She filed a missing person report with the State Department after he did not board the flight.
White worked as a cook in the U.S. Navy and left the service about a decade ago, according to his family.
