CIA agent who sexually assaulted dozens of women sentenced to 30 years in prison | News about sexual assault

A veteran CIA officer who drugged, photographed and sexually assaulted more than two dozen women at locations around the world has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

Brian Jeffrey Raymond, gray-bearded and dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, sat dejectedly as he listened to his punishment Wednesday for one of the most egregious cases of misconduct in CIA history.

This was recorded in his own library of more than 500 images, which in some cases showed him straddling and groping his naked, unconscious victims.

“It’s safe to say that he is a sexual predator,” said federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in imposing the full sentence that prosecutors had requested. “They will have a period of time to think about this.”

Prosecutors said the assaults by Raymond, 48, dated back to 2006 and followed his career with the intelligence agency in Mexico, Peru and other countries, all following a similar pattern.

He lured women he met on Tinder and other dating apps to his government-rented apartment and drugged them while serving them wine and snacks. Once they were unconscious, he would spend hours posing with their naked bodies before photographing and assaulting them.

One by one, about a dozen of Raymond’s victims, who were identified only by numbers in court, recounted how the veteran spy upended their lives. Some said they only learned what happened after the FBI showed them photos of themselves being assaulted while unconscious.

“My body looks like a corpse in his bed,” one victim said of the photos. “I now have nightmares about myself being dead.”

One described having suffered a nervous breakdown. Another spoke of a recurring trance that made her run red lights while driving. Many testified that their trust in others had been shattered.

“I hope the consequences of his actions haunt him for the rest of his life,” said one of the women, who, like others, stared at Raymond as he walked away from the podium.

Reading from a statement, Raymond told the judge he had spent countless hours reflecting on his “downward spiral.”

“He betrayed everything I stand for and I know no apology will ever be enough,” she said. “There are no words to describe how sorry I am. I am not who I am, but I am who I became.”

Raymond’s sentencing comes amid a reckoning over sexual misconduct at the CIA. The Associated Press reported last week that another veteran CIA officer is facing state charges in Virginia for allegedly reaching under a female co-worker’s skirt and forcibly kissing her during a drunken office party.

Another former CIA employee, a trainee, is scheduled to face a jury trial next month on charges that he assaulted a woman with a scarf in a stairwell at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. That case spurred about two dozen women to come forward to authorities and Congress with accounts of their own sexual assaults, unwanted touching and what they say are CIA efforts to silence them.

And yet the full extent of sexual misconduct at the CIA remains a classified secret in the name of national security, including a recent 648-page internal oversight report that found systemic deficiencies in the agency’s handling of such complaints.

“The secretive nature of the activities allowed the agency to hide a lot of things,” said Liza Mundy, author of Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA. The male-dominated agency, she said, has long been a haven for egregious sexual misconduct. “For decades, men at the top had a free hand.”

The CIA has publicly condemned Raymond’s crimes and implemented sweeping reforms aimed at protecting women, streamlining complaints and more quickly disciplining offenders.

“There is no excuse for Mr. Raymond’s reprehensible and egregious behavior,” the agency said Wednesday. “As this case demonstrates, we are committed to cooperating with law enforcement.”

Yet nearly four years after his arrest, Raymond’s case remains shrouded in secrecy. Even after Raymond pleaded guilty late last year, prosecutors have been cautious about the exact nature of his work and have refused to disclose a full list of the countries in which he assaulted women.

Still, they offered a wild account of Raymond’s conduct, describing him as a “serial offender” whose attacks escalated over time and became “almost frenzied” during his last CIA posting in Mexico City, where he was discovered in 2020 after a naked woman screamed for help from the balcony of his apartment.

A “perfect gentleman”

U.S. officials reviewed Raymond’s electronic devices and began identifying the victims he had listed by name and physical characteristics, all of whom described experiencing some form of memory loss during their time with him.

One victim said Raymond seemed like a “perfect gentleman” when they met in Mexico in 2020, and she only remembers them kissing. Unbeknownst to the woman, after she passed out, he took 35 close-up videos and photos of her breasts and genitals.

“Defendant’s manipulation often resulted in the women blaming themselves for blacking out, feeling ashamed, and apologizing to the defendant,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “He was more than willing to manipulate the women, often suggesting that they drank too much and that, despite their contrary instincts, nothing had happened.”

Raymond, a San Diego native and former White House intern who is fluent in Spanish and Mandarin, pleaded guilty to four of 25 federal charges, including sexual abuse, coercion and transportation of obscene material. As part of his sentence, the judge ordered him to pay $10,000 to each of his 28 victims.

Raymond’s lawyers had asked for leniency, arguing that his “quasi-military” work at the CIA in the years after 9/11 became a breeding ground for the emotional callousness and “objectification of other people” that enabled his years of harassing women.

“While working tirelessly at his government job, he ignored his own need for help and over time began to isolate himself, distance himself from human feelings and become emotionally numb,” defense attorney Howard Katzoff wrote in a court filing.

“He was a very valuable public servant, but that took its toll on him and sent him down a dark path.”