A former CIA officer who drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced.
Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, of La Mesa, California, drugged more than two dozen women and performed nonconsensual sexual acts or made sexual contact with at least 10 women, the justice department said in a press release.
Raymond also photographed and recorded videos of victims without their consent while they were drugged or otherwise incapacitated.
Raymond had previously worked for the CIA for more than 20 years, the Washington Post reported.
Prosecutors said that Raymond, as a CIA employee, would lure women he met on dating apps back to his government-leased apartment, later drugging and assaulting them.
The assaults date back to 2006 and took place in multiple countries, including Mexico and Peru.
An investigation of Raymond began in May 2020 when police in Mexico City responded to a naked woman screaming for help on the balcony of Raymond’s residence, according to court documents. The apartment had been leased by the US government for embassy employees.
The woman told police that she and Raymond had met online. She said that Raymond had raped her and accused him of drugging her when the two had drinks at his apartment.
Police then searched Raymond’s devices as apart of the investigation. They discovered several explicit videos and images showing Raymond sexually assaulting numerous women.
Raymond accepted a plea deal in November 2023, pleading guilty to four counts of sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, coercion and enticement, and the transportation of obscene material, according to the Department of Justice.
Several of the women spoke in court about the trauma caused by Raymond’s actions. Many did not realize they had been assaulted until they were approached by police and shown images or videos taken by Raymond.
after newsletter promotion
“My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” said one woman of the photos. “Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead.”
Another woman testified in court: “Was I raped? Was I sexually assaulted. I will never know, and that haunts me too.”
Raymond’s sentencing comes as the CIA faces intense scrutiny over its handling of sexual misconduct cases. A 648-page internal watchdog report revealed that the agency routinely failed to address such incidents.
The document came after an Associated Press investigation found that more than two dozen women reported that they had experienced sexually assault or unwanted contact, later facing retaliation after they reported it to the agency.
Source: theguardian.com
