Ex-CIA officer accused of drugging, raping women taps celebrity memory experts for defense
Trial experts once testified for Harvey Weinstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Bill Cosby
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FIRST ON FOX: Ex-CIA officer Brian Raymond, 47, accused of drugging and sexually assaulting 25 women, has tapped memory experts for his defense who testified at the trials of Bill Cosby and Ghislaine Maxwell.
In new federal filings, Raymond said he planned to call Dr. Deborah Davis, a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, who specializes in the "workings of human memory when under the influence of alcohol."
Davis will also address the topic of consent when under the influence, the filing says.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Dr. Davis will explain that a person in a period of black-out from alcohol consumption may be able to demonstrate consent to sexual activity through physical and verbal action," according to the document. Davis testified for Cosby in a 2022 civil sexual assault trial, which the actor lost.
Former CIA officer Brian Raymond is slated to go to trial Nov. 8 on accusations he drugged and sexually assaulted more than 25 women. (FBI)
Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, an expert in the "creation of false memories," testified at the Manhattan rape trial of Harvey Weinstein and the federal sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who were both convicted.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The distinguished professor of psychological science and law at the University of California-Irvine will try to persuade jurors not to trust the recollections of Raymond's alleged victims.
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A probe into Raymond began in May 2020 after police responded to reports of a naked woman screaming on the balcony of his U.S. Embassy-rented apartment in Mexico City. Although she had no memory of that night, he allegedly drugged and raped her.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After Raymond resigned, FBI agents obtained a warrant for his phones and found hundreds of videos and photographs that allegedly showed him molesting unconscious women.
Ex-CIA officer Brian Raymond is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting more than 25 women over 15 years. (FBI)
Prosecutors say he sexually assaulted at least 25 women over the course of 15 years in the U.S., Mexico and four additional countries. Court papers do not name the other countries due to national security concerns.
He was arrested in October 2020 and has been locked up in a Washington, D.C., jail ever since.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In a scathing decision denying Raymond's application for bail in April, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly summarized the horrific case.
"The record depicts a sexual predator with the means and motive to seek out unsuspecting women on dating applications, drug them, abuse them, and leave them without the memory or wherewithal to report his deviant schemes to law enforcement," she wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former CIA officer Brian Raymond was arrested after police responded to a nude woman screaming on his balcony in Mexico. He allegedly drugged and raped her while working for the Embassy there. (FBI)
She described his "fetish" for rendering his victims unconscious and then manipulating their nude bodies, including forcing open their eyelids, positioning their limbs and groping their body parts.
In one of the depraved clips, he allegedly is shown "grabbing [the victim's] breast and playing with her mouth and tongue as she struggled to breathe," according to the decision.
The former CIA officer, who committed many of his alleged crimes in embassy-leased houses in several countries, conducted internet searches for "Ambien and alcohol and pass out" and "Ambien and alcohol and side effects."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}His alleged fetish was also apparent in his video history, which included searches for "passed out black girl," "deep sleep," and "passed out and carried," according to the criminal complaint.
Raymond is slated to go on trial Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. But his attorneys filed a motion Friday asking the judge to push back the date until April.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}His lawyer, Denise Giraudo, argued in the Sept. 22 filing that she can't effectively prepare a defense because the government has refused to provide the names of Raymond's alleged victims.
The government also hasn't disclosed where the crimes occurred, identified the intoxicants that were used and how they were administered, the filing alleges.