WASHINGTON (AP) — An American imprisoned in Cuba since December 2009 after bringing communications equipment onto the island wanted reassurance that what he was doing was legal but was told by his company not to ask Cuban officials, the man’s wife said.

“If anything happens you’ll be out in two days. Don’t worry,” Judy Gross (pictured) said her husband Alan was told by a co-worker when he expressed concern about the trip.

Saturday will mark two years since Alan Gross, 62, was arrested in Cuba. Since then, the former Maryland resident has been sentenced to spend 15 years in a Cuban prison, and his case has become a sticking point in talks between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations. Judy Gross said that in the past year she twice thought her husband might be able to return to the United States. Both times she was disappointed.

“The Cubans will say one thing one day and change their minds the next,” said Gross, who had to sell the couple’s home and now lives in Washington.

Gross has rarely talked about her husband’s situation, giving interviews only infrequently and waiting for her husband’s case to work its way through the Cuban legal process.