sexual assault

A former CIA officer has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for drugging, sexually assaulting and filming more than two dozen women in multiple countries over more than a decade. 

Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, of La Mesa California, was ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised release, pay $260,000 in restitution to the victims and register as a sex offender after leaving prison.

“When this predator was a government employee, he lured unsuspecting women to his government-leased housing and drugged them,” said US Attorney Matthew M. Graves. 

“After drugging these women, he stripped, sexually abused and photographed them. Today’s sentence ensures that the defendant will be properly marked as a sex offender for life, and he will spend a substantial portion of the rest of his life behind bars.

Prosecutors said in court filings that Raymond had engaged in a 14-year-long “criminal scheme to exploit women”. 

In court filings, they said Raymond’s actions typically followed a pattern: He would drug women at his apartment alongside wine and snacks, then “spent hours moving, posing and assaulting them”. Some victims had met him on dating apps, while others had known him for nearly 20 years.

  The case against Raymond began in May 2020, when a naked woman was seen screaming for help from the balcony of his Mexico City “government-leased housing”. 

“Raymond admitted to having sexual intercourse with her, but the woman reported that she had no memory of events after consuming drinks and food provided by Raymond,” the FBI wrote in a 2021 public notice, seeking potential victims of Raymond.

In 2023, Raymon pleaded guilty to one count each of sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, coercion and enticement, and transportation of obscene material.

  As part of the plea agreement, Raymond admitted to drugging and then engaging in nonconsensual sexual acts with four women and nonconsensual sexual contact with six women. He further admitted to drugging and then creating obscene material depicting 28 women without their knowledge or permission and drugging two other women.

The bitter experience of the victims

In an emotional hearing this week, victims of Raymond’s deplorable actions filled four rows in the courtroom, with 12 of them taking to the stand to ask that he be given the maximum sentence, according to the Washington Post.

The women who spoke in court were not named, but NPR reports they described the shock they felt when the FBI showed them photos of themselves unconscious while being assaulted. 

My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” one victim said, according to the AP. “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.” Having been held without bail in a D.C. prison since 2020, Raymond listened to the victims in court, before apologising by reading a statement, saying he takes responsibility for “his downward spiral” and “unconscionable actions”. 

US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly instituted the maximum sentence, saying Raymond’s acts had “betrayed his government and his country.”

“It’s safe to say he’s a sexual predator,” she said, according to the AP. “You are going to have a period of time to think about this.”

In the FBI’s statement, authorities praised all the victims who came forward, saying they thank “the brave women who shared information that furthered this investigation”. 

Raymond’s sentencing comes amid a string of sexual misconduct investigations at the CIA, including another officer trainee that’s scheduled to face a jury trial next month on charges he assaulted a woman with a scarf in a stairwell at the agency’s Langley, Virginia headquarters.

  A recent 648-page internal watchdog report found that there were systemic shortcomings in the CIA’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints. 

Liza Mundy, author of ‘Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA’, said “the classified nature of the activities” in this male-dominated agency has long been a refuge for atrocious sexual misconduct: “For decades, men at the top had free rein”.

The CIA has publicly condemned Raymond’s crimes and implemented sweeping reforms intended to keep women safe, streamline claims and more quickly discipline offenders.

“There is absolutely no excuse for Mr. Raymond’s reprehensible, appalling  behaviour,” the agency said. “As this case shows, we are committed to engaging with law enforcement.

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