There's a growing predator problem plaguing the U.S. intelligence community.
A former U.S. government employee accused of drugging and sexually abusing numerous women during overseas postings across multiple countries pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal sex-offense charges, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
Ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer 47-year-old Brian Jeffrey Raymond, of La Mesa, California, was employed by the federal government at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Raymond has admitted to sexually assaulting a multitude of women in his embassy-leased housing "and elsewhere" between 2006 and 2020, per the DOJ press release. Additionally, Raymond confessed to photographing and filming more than two dozen nude and partially nude women who were not conscious or incapable of consenting, according to charging documents filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.
Over a 14-year stretch, Raymond accumulated nearly 500 photographs and videos that he took of at least 28 naked, unconscious victims. Many of the recordings depict the CIA spy "touching and manipulating" their bodies by opening the women's eyelids, groping them (touching their breasts, buttocks, or genitalia), and straddling them, federal prosecutors allege. The explicit images date to 2006 and coincide with much of the CIA spook's globetrotting career—with female victims around the world, including ones in Mexico and Peru, among other foreign nations where Raymond was stationed abroad on official business for a decade-and-a-half period.
Raymond is described as being an "experienced sexual predator" and "serial sexual offender."
The #FBI's Washington Field Office and Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service’s Office of Special Investigations are seeking information regarding alleged sexual offender Brian Jeffrey Raymond. You can learn more here: https://t.co/4MtCBibjc2 pic.twitter.com/FNwcgfvwDh
— FBI Chicago (@FBIChicago) December 16, 2020
Resulting from search-and-seizure warrants for Raymond's electronic devices, federal law-enforcement investigators conducted a forensic examination of Raymond's iCloud account, which returned "items of investigative interest," according to a sworn affidavit signed by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent in October 2020, leading to Raymond's arrest.
"Internet artifacts" on Raymond's phones revealed searches for "passed out black girl" and "deep sleep." Raymond's ASUS laptops stored searches for the sedative he admittedly used to drug his victims: Zolpidem, sold under the brand name Ambien.
FBI sworn affidavit | Source: U.S. v. Raymond
The investigation into Raymond's predatory activity began on May 31, 2020, when a naked woman was seen screaming for help from the balcony of Raymond's residence in Mexico City. 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 the now-former CIA agent.
Over the course of the criminal investigation, the FBI launched a website seeking victims in the Raymond case via an online questionnaire, asking who's had "contact with or dated" Raymond, and accordingly, "the country where the contact occurred."
In conjunction with the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Office of Special Investigations, the FBI's Washington Field Office created a central electronic system to collect information and further investigate Raymond's crimes.
Raymond pled guilty to sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, coercion and enticement, and transportation of obscene material.
Under the guilty-plea agreement, Raymond will face between 24 and 30 years in federal prison as well as supervised release for life. Raymond will also be required to pay mandatory restitution to the victims of his sexual offenses. Raymond's sentencing hearings are scheduled for Sept. 18 and Sept. 19, 2024. The sentence will be determined by a federal district court judge.
Before the arrangement, Raymond's trial was scheduled for Nov. 8. At trial, Raymond was reportedly expected to use the "Ghislaine Maxwell playbook" and intended to call on a notorious psychologist who testified on behalf of an array of high-profile rapists and sexual abusers, which include the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Jerry Sandusky, and Bill Cosby.
Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, an "expert witness" in the "misinformation effect" of "false memories," was slated to try to convince a jury not to trust the accounts of the victims and dismiss the allegations as figments of the imagination, according to a notice of intent submitted by Raymond's legal counsel. Loftus was set to discuss "the workings of human memory, the effects of suggestion on memory, the mechanism of creation of false memories [...] and how memory becomes more vulnerable to contamination," specifically pointing to how outside influence can distort memory. "[S]uggestive activities can explain how it is that a person might go from having no memory of sexual abuse to later having 'memories' of abusive acts, even where the memories are false."
The notice includes a transcript of Loftus's testimony in the 2021 trial of Maxwell, child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice.
Record of Loftus's testimony | Source: U.S. v. Raymond
Loftus's brother told The New Yorker: "If the MeToo movement had an office, Beth's picture would be on the ten-most-wanted list."
Last year, Raymond had withdrawn his (first) guilty plea, arguing that he suffers from erectile dysfunction in an attempt to use impotence as a defense. According to the motion to withdraw, Raymond has an enlarged prostate for which he has been taking the drug dutasteride a.k.a. Avodart. One of the side effects is ED. To combat the condition, Raymond allegedly uses Cialis, a prescription medication similar to Viagra. "As a person with ED, Mr. Raymond experiences a prolonged refractory period (the time between ejaculation and when he can again achieve an erection), generally at least 12 hours," Raymond's lawyers argued. "Therefore, he asserts that he could not have had sex with Complainant #7 to the point of ejaculation during the night..."
Raymond's motion to withdraw guilty plea | Source: U.S. v. Raymond
Raymond previously worked for many years at the spy agency. In the U.S. and internationally, Raymond met many of his victims on various hook-up applications, such as Tinder and Bumble. Speaking both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, Raymond has traveled extensively for work and leisure. Domestically, Raymond resided in the areas of San Diego and Washington, D.C.
This wasn't the only time a U.S. intelligence agency has caught a rank-and-file member sexually abusing victims.
As Townhall covered, the FBI busted one of its own employees allegedly using his employment status to groom boys as young as 12-years-old to act out his sick sexual fantasies on camera. In August, a grand jury indicted former FBI contractor Brett William Janes, of Arlington, Virginia, on a slew of felonies for sexually abusing and exploiting children to produce child pornography.
A grand jury indicted now-former FBI contractor Brett Janes on federal felony charges of sexually abusing and exploiting children to produce child pornography. Janes, a DC-based intel expert, had recently accepted a contract position within a headquarters unit in the FBI. pic.twitter.com/GtmCf3OzEp
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) August 26, 2023
Janes, an intelligence analyst for a counter-threat agency that provides consultation services to the U.S. government, had recently accepted a contracted position within a headquarters unit in the FBI. According to court documents Townhall obtained, Janes contacted about a dozen underage boys over instant-messaging platforms, like Snapchat and Discord, to coerce the children into engaging in sexual acts. Janes groomed the minors by telling them he worked for a U.S. intelligence agency within the federal government, flashing the security badges that he used as a contract employee to access federal facilities, and repeatedly threatening to commit suicide if the children did not obey his commands, FBI probable cause statements allege.
An affidavit filed in the federal child-sexual-exploitation case alleges that Janes, an intelligence analyst formerly employed by the FBI, would flash his security clearance badges, which he used to access federal facilities, in Discord chats with minors. pic.twitter.com/lC0NZJzbz0
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) August 26, 2023
On Tuesday, Janes pleaded guilty to the production and receipt of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
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