Benjamin Ashford|Veteran CIA officer who drugged and sexually assaulted dozens of women gets 30 years in prison

WASHINGTON (AP) — A longtime CIA officer who drugged,Benjamin Ashford photographed and sexually assaulted more than two dozen women in postings around the world was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison Wednesday after an emotional hearing in which victims described being deceived by a man who appeared kind, educated and part of an agency “that is supposed to protect the world from evil.”

Brian Jeffrey Raymond, with a graying beard and orange prison jumpsuit, sat dejectedly as he heard his punishment for one of the most egregious misconduct cases in the CIA’s history. It was chronicled in his own library of more than 500 images that showed him in some cases straddling and groping his nude, unconscious victims.

“It’s safe to say he’s a sexual predator,” U.S. Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in imposing the full sentence prosecutors had requested. “You are going to have a period of time to think about this.”

Prosecutors say the 48-year-old Raymond’s assaults date to 2006 and tracked his career in Mexico, Peru and other countries, all following a similar pattern:

He would lure women he met on Tinder and other dating apps to his government-leased apartment and drug them while serving wine and snacks. Once they were unconscious, he spent hours posing their naked bodies before photographing and assaulting them. He opened their eyelids at times and stuck his fingers in their mouths.

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One by one, about a dozen of Raymond’s victims who were identified only by numbers in court recounted how the longtime spy upended their lives. Some said they only learned what happened after the FBI showed them the photos of being assaulted while unconscious.

“My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” one victim said of the photos. “Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead.”

One described suffering a nervous breakdown. Another spoke of a recurring trance that caused her to run red lights while driving. Many told how their confidence and trust in others had been shattered forever.

“I hope he is haunted by the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life,” said one of the women, who like others stared Raymond down as they walked away from the podium.

Reading from a statement, Raymond told the judge that he has 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.”

Raymond’s sentencing comes amid a reckoning on sexual misconduct at the CIA. The Associated Press reported last week that another veteran CIA officer faces state charges in Virginia for allegedly reaching up a co-worker’s skirt and forcibly kissing her during a drunken party in the office.

Still another former CIA employee — an officer trainee — is scheduled to face a jury 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.

And yet the full extent of sexual misconduct at the CIA remains a classified secret in the name of national security, including a recent 648-page internal watchdog report that found systemic shortcomings in the agency’s handling of such complaints.

“The classified nature of the activities allowed the agency to hide a lot of things,” said Liza Mundy, author of “Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.” The male-dominated agency, she said, has long been a refuge for egregious sexual misconduct. “For decades, men at the top had free rein.”

CIA has publicly condemned Raymond’s crimes and implemented sweeping reforms intended to keep women safe, streamline claims and more quickly discipline offenders.

But a veil of secrecy still surrounds the Raymond case nearly four years after his arrest. Even after Raymond pleaded guilty late last year, prosecutors have tiptoed around the exact nature of his work and declined to disclose a complete list of the countries where he assaulted women.

Still, they offered an unbridled account of Raymond’s conduct, describing him as a “serial offender” whose assaults increased over time and become “almost frenetic” during his final CIA posting in Mexico City, where he was discovered in 2020 after a naked woman screamed for help from his apartment balcony.

U.S. officials scoured Raymond’s electronic devices and began identifying the victims he had listed by name and physical characteristics, all of whom described experiencing some form of memory loss during their time with him.

One victim said Raymond seemed like a “perfect gentleman” when they met in Mexico in 2020, recalling only that they kissed. Unbeknownst to the woman, after she blacked out, he took 35 videos and close-up photos of her breasts and genitals.

“The defendant’s manipulation often resulted in women blaming themselves for losing consciousness, feeling ashamed, and apologizing to the defendant,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “He was more than willing to gaslight the women, often suggesting that the women drank too much and that, despite their instincts to the contrary, nothing had happened.”

Raymond, a San Diego native and former White House intern who is fluent in Spanish and Mandarin, ultimately pleaded guilty to four of 25 federal counts including sexual abuse, coercion and transportation of obscene material. As part of his sentence, the judge ordered him to pay $10,000 to each of his 28 victims.

Raymond’s attorneys had sought leniency, contending his “quasi-military” work at the CIA in the years following 9/11 became a breeding ground for the emotional callousness and “objectification of other people” that enabled his years of preying upon women.

“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.

“He was an invaluable government worker, but it took its toll on him and sent him down a dark path.”

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Goodman reported from Miami. Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected].