Washington (AFP) – A former CIA officer was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday for drugging and sexually abusing more than two dozen women in several countries. Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, of La Mesa, California, pleaded guilty in November 2023 to one count of abusive sexual contact and other charges.
“When this predator was a government employee, he lured unsuspecting women to his government-leased housing and drugged them,” Matthew Graves, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, said. “After drugging these women, he stripped, sexually abused, and photographed them,” Graves said in a statement.
Nicole Argentieri, a senior Justice Department official, said Raymond “sexually exploited dozens of women over the course of 14 years.” According to court documents, Raymond’s last posting was Mexico City, where he drugged and sexually assaulted several women.
The FBI, in an October 2021 appeal to the public for information, said the investigation into Raymond began on May 31, 2020, when a naked woman was seen screaming for help from the balcony of his residence in Mexico City. It said hundreds of photographs and videos were recovered from Raymond’s electronic devices depicting at least 24 unconscious and nude or partially nude women.
Raymond worked for many years at the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI said, had lived in numerous countries, including Peru, and was fluent in Spanish and Mandarin. He worked at the US embassy in Mexico from August 2018 until May 2020.
© 2024 AFP
