In a secluded stairwell at CIA headquarters last year, officer trainee Ashkan Bayatpour came up behind a colleague, wrapped a scarf around her neck and plainly spoke as he tried to kiss her on the mouth.
“There are many uses for this,” the woman recalls him saying. “This is what I want to do to you.”
Bayatpour was convicted Wednesday of a state misdemeanor charge of assault and battery in a case that was remarkable for breaking through the CIA’s veil of ultra-secrecy and playing out in a public courtroom where it has emboldened a sexual misconduct reckoning.
At least two-dozen women have come forward in recent months with their own complaints of abusive treatment within the CIA, telling authorities and Congress not only about sexual assaults, unwanted touching and coercion but of what they contend is a campaign by the spy agency to keep them from speaking out, with dire warnings it could wreck their careers and even endanger national security.
I have a friend who was a contractor at a three-letter agency. She walked into a hallway and doesn’t remember anything else. She woke up being taken to a hospital with a fractured eye socket. They reviewed the security footage and told her she just collapsed, which is possible because she does have some health issues. But we’re all suspicious about this because they refused to let her review the footage of her collapse. They’ve closed the file and she’s moved on with her life, but me and some other friends remain suspicious.
America, the land of the free.
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