Securing the Return of Leon Levenstein

September 10, 2026

The Honorable Gavin Newsom
Governor of California
1021 O Street, Suite 9000
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Leon Levenstein, a six-year-old U.S. citizen held in the Russian Federation — request for a private word with First Lady Melania Trump

Dear Governor Newsom,

Anthony Scaramucci kindly passed this along. We have met three times — twice in San Francisco while you were mayor, on California Street and at the Olympic Club, and once at John Katzman's company in Union Square, New York, when you were Lieutenant Governor. You seemed to remember me that third time; remarkable in a state of forty million.

My six-year-old son, Leon Levenstein, a U.S. citizen, has been held in Russia since December 2023, when his mother died suddenly on a short visit to Moscow. Within a day, Russian authorities gave a maternal relative guardianship without notifying me, his surviving parent. This week a Moscow court granted me a daily call and supervised visits — the first movement in the case, but unenforced and not his return. I have still not seen or spoken to my son.

The one channel that has actually moved children across this border is the First Lady's: Mrs. Trump has brought children home through direct contact with President Putin. No American child has yet been included. Leon would be the first, and I doubt he is the only one.

A private word from you to Mrs. Trump, asking that Leon be added, is something a Governor can do and a father cannot. It is an American child's case; it belongs to no party. I am not asking for a public campaign.

You issued those marriage licenses in 2004 at real risk to your life — I remember the snipers on the City Hall roof — so I know you act when something is right. I have gone back to Russia six times since Leon was taken, filed four court cases, and I know how dire the situation is now.

The case summary is at bringleonhome.org/summary; I will send anything your office needs and make my counsel available to yours. Nothing matters more to me than my child's return.