WASHINGTON (CN) — A former CIA agent pleaded guilty Tuesday to drugging and sexually assaulting dozens of women while working at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City whom he met through online dating apps then took photos of while unconscious.
Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 47, took the plea deal to dismiss 21 of the 25 charges brought against him, pleading guilty to four counts: sexual abuse, abusive sexual contact, coercion of a female to travel and transportation of obscene material.
As part of the deal, Raymond must pay $10,000 in restitution to each of the 24 victims who have been identified. He will also register as a sex offender and remain on the list for the remainder of his life.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, scheduled Raymond’s sentencing for Sept. 18 and 19, 2024, to provide adequate time for victims to make statements before Raymond is sent to prison.
As part of the plea agreement, Raymond faces between 24 and 30 years in prison. Had he gone to trial, he would have faced potential life in prison, the maximum sentence for the abusive sexual contact charge.
Nonetheless, “he’s facing a lot of time,” Kollar-Kotelly said.
According to prosecutors’ statement of offense, federal investigators found nearly 500 photos and videos of unconscious women on multiple devices belonging to Raymond. Between 2006 and 2020, Raymond recorded at least 24 unconscious women, nude or partially nude.
Evidence presented by Justice Department attorney Angela Buckner in June showed that most of his victims were from Mexico City, with others living in California and Virginia. She also presented Google and YouTube searches Raymond made for “deep sleep won’t wake up,” “unconscious women,” “Ambien” and “passed out.”
In interviews with investigators, none of the victims said they had any memory of being recorded, nor had they consented to Raymond recording them while unconscious. They each said they drank alcohol prepared by Raymond and that they had experienced memory loss.
According to the statement, Raymond used online dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble to meet women and later invite them to his apartment, where he would get them intoxicated and drug them until they were unconscious.
The allegations against Raymond emerged in May 2020 after a passerby reported seeing a “naked, hysterical women desperately screaming for help” from the balcony of Raymond’s government-provided apartment in Mexico City.
Tuesday’s guilty plea comes after Raymond walked back a previous plea in July 2021, having switched lawyers and asserted that the evidence found on his devices were unconstitutionally gathered.
In June 2023, Raymond's former lawyer, John Marston argued that investigators had violated his constitutional rights in their execution of a search warrant for his two phones on which they found the hundreds of photos of his victims.
Marston, a partner with Foley Hoag, claimed that Office of Special Investigations Agent Mikel Gajkowski violated his client’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights by repeatedly meeting with him to obtain access to his devices, taking issue with how she called him down from his hotel room multiple times.
Raymond had previously been scheduled to go to trial on Wednesday, but after five of his attorneys withdrew from the case in late October — including Marston — his trial was converted into a plea agreement hearing.
Howard Katzoff joined the case as Raymond’s newest lead defense attorney on November 1, the day after a status conference before Kollar-Kotelly where she scheduled Tuesday’s hearing.
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