A veteran CIA officer who used his position to drug and sexually assault more than 20 women while stationed around the world was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in federal prison.
The sentence was handed down to Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, of La Mesa, California, after an emotional hearing in which his victims described being duped by a man who appeared kind, cultured and part of an institution “supposed to protect the world from evil.”
“It's no exaggeration to say he is a sex offender,” Senior U.S. Judge Colleen Coller Kotelly said before imposing the sentence requested by prosecutors. “We're going to give you some time to think about this.”
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Former CIA officer Brian Jeffrey Raymond is seen in this October 25, 2023 photo provided by the FBI. (FBI via Associated Press)
In addition to his prison sentence, Raymond was ordered to pay $260,000 in restitution to his victims. Fox News Digital reached out to the CIA.
US Attorney Matthew Graves said in a statement that Raymond's sentence will ensure that “he will be properly recorded as a sex offender for the rest of his life and will spend the majority of the rest of his life behind bars.”
Prosecutors said the assaults took place in Mexico, Peru and other countries in 2006 and all followed the same pattern.
Raymond met women on dating apps such as Tinder and lured them to government-rented apartments in Mexico City, where he offered them wine and snacks and drugged them. After they were rendered unconscious, he had them pose in front of his naked bodies, photographed them and assaulted them. Prosecutors said Raymond would sometimes open the women's eyelids and put his fingers in their mouths.
After Raymond learned he was under investigation, he tried to delete images and videos of the women in an attempt to cover his tracks.
About a dozen of Raymond's victims, identified in court only by numbers, described how he changed their lives, with some saying they only learned what had happened to them after the FBI showed them photographs of them unconscious and being beaten.
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Brian Jeffrey Raymond was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
“My body looks like a corpse on my bed,” one victim said of the photo. “Now I have nightmares where I see myself dead.”
Raymond kept over 500 photographs, some of which show him straddling and groping his naked, unconscious victims.
“I hope he lives with the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life,” said one of the women in the courtroom.
In a statement, the former spy told the judge he has spent countless hours thinking about his “spiral of decadence.”
“It's a betrayal of what I believe in and I know no apology will ever be enough,” he said. “Words cannot express how sorry I am. That's not who I am, and that's who I've become.”
Prosecutors have not released a complete list of the countries where the assaults occurred but described Raymond as a repeat offender.
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At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the agency's seal flies next to the American flag. Veteran CIA officer Brian Jeffrey Raymond was convicted of sexually abusing more than 20 women. (AP Photo/Carolyn Custer)
His lawyers asked the judge for leniency, citing Raymond's “paramilitary” work with the CIA in the years after the September 11 attacks, which they said fostered years of emotional callousness and “objectification” that led him to prey on women, adding that his work led him down a “dark path.”
He ultimately pleaded guilty to 25 charges, including sexual abuse, coercion and transportation of obscene materials.
“He neglected his own need for help while working tirelessly on his government job and over time he became isolated, detached from human feelings and emotionally numb,” defense attorney Howard Katzoff wrote in court documents.
Raymond's sentence comes amid another public relations fiasco for the intelligence community.
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A trainee is set to go on trial next month for allegedly assaulting a woman with a scarf on the steps of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, after the incident prompted nearly two dozen women to come forward to authorities and Congress with accounts of sexual assault, unwanted touching and what they say is an effort by the CIA to silence them.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
