A CIA officer will spend 30 years in federal prison after committing horrific crimes against women in several countries while working for ...
A CIA officer will spend 30 years in federal prison after committing horrific crimes against women in several countries while working for the agency.
48-year-old Brian Jeffrey Raymond drugged and raped dozens of women, often in apartments that were leased by the government abroad for him, and documented his crimes in videos and photos.
The FBI reportedly has almost 500 images of him assaulting unconscious, naked victims in incidents that date back to 2006. He found his victims on dating apps, whom he would then lure to his apartment, where he would spike their drinks to render them unconscious. He would spend several hours posing their nude bodies before taking photos and assaulting them. In some cases, he opened their eyelids for the photos.
In many cases, he would leverage his role with the CIA or as a “diplomat” to get women to trust him. Afterward, the women often had no recollection of what happened between them. Some of them had no idea what occurred until they were contacted by investigators and shown photos of them being unconscious and assaulted.
One victim said: "My body looks like a corpse on his bed. Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead."
Another said that she finds herself in a recurring trance, causing her to run red lights while she is driving, while another experienced a nervous breakdown. Many of them described losing their confidence and ability to trust in other people.
“I hope he is haunted by the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life,” one victim said in court.
Officer's behavior was escalating and "almost frenetic" before he got caught
His 14-year crime spree started to unravel when a woman screamed for help from his balcony; he was working in Mexico City at the time for the American embassy. A subsequent investigation of his electronic devices revealed hundreds of disturbing images of his crimes.
He raped at least half a dozen women while stationed there, following the same pattern of meeting them on apps, talking to them in Spanish, and passing himself off as a “high-level embassy employee in whom the government had reposed special trust.”
He tried to delete the videos and photos after learning of the investigation but failed. Prosecutors say that his behavior got worse over time and was “almost frenetic” by the time he ended up in Mexico City.
Prosecutors reported: "The defendant’s goal was simple: to sexually and physically assault women when they were at their most vulnerable and to create a lasting collection of photographs and videos memorializing his abhorrent deeds."
He pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court in Washington on four of the 25 criminal charges, including one count each of abusive sexual contact, sexual abuse, transportation of obscene material and coercion and enticement. He was handed the maximum possible sentence, and once he is released, he must undergo supervised release for the remainder of his life, register as a sex offender, and pay his victims $260,000 in restitution.
U.S. Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said: “It’s safe to say he’s a sexual predator. You are going to have a period of time to think about this.”
CIA dealing with numerous reports of sexual misconduct
The news comes at a time when the CIA is dealing with numerous reports of sexual misconduct by agents.
Another veteran officer is currently facing charges in Virginia for forcibly kissing a co-worker and putting his hand up her skirt at an office party while under the influence of alcohol, while an officer trainee will go before a jury next month for assaulting a woman in a stairwell at the CIA headquarters. This case gave dozens of other women the courage to come forward with their own accounts of being sexually assaulted and claims that the CIA systematically tries to silence victims.