French woman testifies in court after alleged abuse by over 50 men, ex-husband: 'an exceptional dignity'
Gisèle Pélicot took the stand on Thursday to testify against her ex-husband and dozens more for alleged abuses spanning over a decade, occurring while she was heavily drugged. (Credit: AP)
A veteran Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who used his position to drug and sexually assault more than two dozen women while posted around the world was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison on Wednesday.
The sentence was handed down to Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, a La Mesa, California, resident, following an emotional hearing in which his victims described being deceived by a man they said appeared kind, educated and part of an agency "that is supposed to protect the world from evil."
"It's safe to say he's a sexual predator," U.S. Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said before imposing the full sentence prosecutors had requested. "You are going to have a period of time to think about this."
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This photo provided by the FBI on Oct. 25, 2023 shows Brian Jeffrey Raymond, a former CIA officer. (FBI via AP)
In addition to prison time, Raymond was ordered to pay $260,000 in restitution to his victims. Fox News Digital has reached out to the CIA.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said Raymond's sentence ensures that he "will be properly marked as a sex offender for life, and he will spend a substantial portion of the rest of his life behind bars."
The assaults date back to 2006 and occurred in Mexico, Peru and other countries, prosecutors said. They all followed the same pattern.
Raymond would lure women he met on Tinder and other dating apps to his government-leased apartment in Mexico City, among other locations, and drug them while serving wine and snacks. Once unconscious, he posed with their naked bodies before photographing and assaulting them. He opened their eyelids at times and stuck his fingers in their mouths, prosecutors said.
In an effort to cover his tracks, Raymond tried to delete the images and videos depicting the women after learning he was being investigated.
About a dozen of Raymond’s victims, who were identified only by numbers in court, recounted how he changed their lives. Some said they only learned what happened to them after the FBI showed them the photos of being assaulted while unconscious.
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Brian Jeffrey Raymond was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
"My body looks like a corpse on his bed," one victim said of the photos. "Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead."
Raymond kept a library of more than 500 images, some of which showed him in some cases straddling and groping his nude, unconscious victims.
"I hope he is haunted by the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life," said one of the women in court.
In a statement, the former spy told the judge that he had spent countless hours contemplating his "downward spiral."
"It betrayed everything I stand for, and I know no apology will ever be enough," he said. "There are no words to describe how sorry I am. That’s not who I am, and yet it’s who I became."
Prosecutors have not disclosed a complete list of the countries where the assaults happened but described Raymond as a serial offender.
The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency stands next to a U.S. flag at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Veteran CIA officer Brian Jeffrey Raymond was convicted of sexually abusing more than two dozen women. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Defense attorneys asked the judge for leniency, citing Raymond's "quasi-military" work at the CIA in the years following the Sept. 11 attacks, which also became a breeding ground for the emotional callousness and "objectification of other people" that enabled his years of preying upon women, his lawyers said, adding that his work took him down a "dark path."
He ultimately pleaded guilty to 25 counts, including sexual abuse, coercion and transportation of obscene material.
"While he was working tirelessly at his government job, he ignored his own need for help, and over time he began to isolate himself, detach himself from human feelings and become emotionally numb," defense attorney Howard Katzoff wrote in a court filing.
Raymond's sentencing comes amid another public relations diaster for the spy agency.
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An officer trainee is scheduled to stand trial next month on charges he assaulted a woman with a scarf in a stairwell at the agency’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters. That case emboldened some two dozen women to come forward to authorities and Congress with accounts of their own of sexual assaults, unwanted touching and what they contend are the CIA’s efforts to silence them.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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