A veteran CIA agent who drugged, photographed and sexually assaulted more than two dozen women while on assignments around the world was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in federal prison after an emotional hearing in which some of the victims described being duped by a man who seemed kind, polite and part of an agency “that is supposed to protect the world from evil.”
Brian Jeffrey Raymond, graying and wearing an orange prison uniform, sat dejected as he heard his sentence after one of the most egregious cases of misconduct in the intelligence agency’s history. His actions were captured in his collection of more than 500 photographs, some of which showed him humping and fondling the naked bodies of his victims. “It’s safe to say without a doubt that he is a sexual predator,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in imposing the maximum sentence prosecutors had sought. “You’re going to have time to think about this.”
According to prosecutors, the sexual assaults by Raymond, 48, date back to 2006 and extend throughout his career through Mexico, Peru and other countries, always following a similar pattern.
He lured women he met on Tinder and other dating apps to the apartment the government rented for him, drugging them while serving them wine and snacks. Once they were unconscious, he would spend hours posing their naked bodies before photographing and sexually assaulting them. Sometimes he would pry open their eyelids, and other times he would put his fingers inside their mouths.
One by one, about a dozen of Raymond’s victims, identified only by numbers, told the court how the seasoned spy turned their lives upside down. Some said they only learned what happened to them after the FBI showed them photos of themselves being sexually assaulted while unconscious.
“My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” one victim said of the photos. “Now I have these nightmares where I see myself dead.”
One of them described having suffered a nervous breakdown. Another spoke of falling into a recurring trance that made her run stop signs while driving. Many described how their self-confidence and ability to trust others were destroyed forever.
“I hope the consequences of his actions haunt him for the rest of his life,” said one of the women, who, like the others, stared at Raymond as they walked away from the stand.
Raymond read from a prepared statement in which he told the judge he had spent countless hours contemplating his “downward spiral.”
“I betrayed everything I stood for and I know that no apology will ever be enough,” she said. “I have no words to describe how sorry I am. I am not like this and yet I became this.”
Raymond was born in San Diego, is a former White House intern and is fluent in Spanish and Mandarin. He 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.
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