A veteran CIA officer who drugged, photographed and sexually assaulted greater than two dozen ladies at areas world wide has been sentenced to 30 years in federal jail.
Brian Jeffrey Raymond, gray-bearded and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, sat dejectedly as he listened to his punishment Wednesday for some of the egregious instances of misconduct in CIA historical past.
This was recorded in his personal library of greater than 500 pictures, which in some instances confirmed him straddling and groping his bare, unconscious victims.
“It’s secure to say that he’s a sexual predator,” stated federal Choose Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in imposing the total sentence that prosecutors had requested. “They’ll have a time period to consider this.”
Prosecutors stated the assaults by Raymond, 48, dated again to 2006 and adopted his profession with the intelligence company in Mexico, Peru and different nations, all following an analogous sample.
He lured ladies he met on Tinder and different relationship apps to his government-rented condominium and drugged them whereas serving them wine and snacks. As soon as they had been unconscious, he would spend hours posing with their bare our bodies earlier than photographing and assaulting them.
One after the other, a few dozen of Raymond’s victims, who had been recognized solely by numbers in court docket, recounted how the veteran spy upended their lives. Some stated they solely realized what occurred after the FBI confirmed them images of themselves being assaulted whereas unconscious.
“My physique appears to be like like a corpse in his mattress,” one sufferer stated of the images. “I now have nightmares about myself being lifeless.”
One described having suffered a nervous breakdown. One other spoke of a recurring trance that made her run crimson lights whereas driving. Many testified that their belief in others had been shattered.
“I hope the implications of his actions hang-out him for the remainder of his life,” stated one of many ladies, who, like others, stared at Raymond as he walked away from the rostrum.
Studying from an announcement, Raymond advised the decide he had spent numerous hours reflecting on his “downward spiral.”
“He betrayed every little thing I stand for and I do know no apology will ever be sufficient,” she stated. “There aren’t any phrases to explain how sorry I’m. I’m not who I’m, however I’m who I grew to become.”
Raymond’s sentencing comes amid a reckoning over sexual misconduct on the CIA. The Related Press reported final week that one other veteran CIA officer is going through state prices in Virginia for allegedly reaching underneath a feminine co-worker’s skirt and forcibly kissing her throughout a drunken workplace celebration.
One other former CIA worker, a trainee, is scheduled to face a jury trial subsequent month on prices that he assaulted a girl with a shawl in a stairwell on the company’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. That case spurred about two dozen ladies to return ahead to authorities and Congress with accounts of their very own sexual assaults, undesirable touching and what they are saying are CIA efforts to silence them.
And but the total extent of sexual misconduct on the CIA stays a labeled secret within the identify of nationwide safety, together with a current 648-page inner oversight report that discovered systemic deficiencies within the company’s dealing with of such complaints.
“The secretive nature of the actions allowed the company to cover lots of issues,” stated Liza Mundy, creator of Sisterhood: The Secret Historical past of Ladies on the CIA. The male-dominated company, she stated, has lengthy been a haven for egregious sexual misconduct. “For many years, males on the high had a free hand.”
The CIA has publicly condemned Raymond’s crimes and carried out sweeping reforms geared toward defending ladies, streamlining complaints and extra shortly disciplining offenders.
“There is no such thing as a excuse for Mr. Raymond’s reprehensible and egregious habits,” the company stated Wednesday. “As this case demonstrates, we’re dedicated to cooperating with regulation enforcement.”
But almost 4 years after his arrest, Raymond’s case stays shrouded in secrecy. Even after Raymond pleaded responsible late final 12 months, prosecutors have been cautious in regards to the precise nature of his work and have refused to reveal a full listing of the nations during which he assaulted ladies.
Nonetheless, they supplied a wild account of Raymond’s conduct, describing him as a “serial offender” whose assaults escalated over time and have become “nearly frenzied” throughout his final CIA posting in Mexico Metropolis, the place he was found in 2020 after a unadorned lady screamed for assist from the balcony of his condominium.
A “excellent gentleman”
U.S. officers reviewed Raymond’s digital gadgets and commenced figuring out the victims he had listed by identify and bodily traits, all of whom described experiencing some type of reminiscence loss throughout their time with him.
One sufferer stated Raymond appeared like a “excellent gentleman” after they met in Mexico in 2020, and he or she solely remembers them kissing. Unbeknownst to the lady, after she handed out, he took 35 close-up movies and images of her breasts and genitals.
“Defendant’s manipulation typically resulted within the ladies blaming themselves for blacking out, feeling ashamed, and apologizing to the defendant,” prosecutors wrote in a court docket submitting. “He was greater than keen to govern the ladies, typically suggesting that they drank an excessive amount of and that, regardless of their opposite instincts, nothing had occurred.”
Raymond, a San Diego native and former White Home intern who’s fluent in Spanish and Mandarin, pleaded responsible to 4 of 25 federal prices, together with sexual abuse, coercion and transportation of obscene materials. As a part of his sentence, the decide ordered him to pay $10,000 to every of his 28 victims.
Raymond’s legal professionals had requested for leniency, arguing that his “quasi-military” work on the CIA within the years after 9/11 grew to become a breeding floor for the emotional callousness and “objectification of different individuals” that enabled his years of harassing ladies.
“Whereas working tirelessly at his authorities job, he ignored his personal want for assist and over time started to isolate himself, distance himself from human emotions and grow to be emotionally numb,” protection legal professional Howard Katzoff wrote in a court docket submitting.
“He was a really invaluable public servant, however that took its toll on him and despatched him down a darkish path.”
