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A veteran CIA officer was found guilty Wednesday of assault and battery for reaching up a colleague’s skirt and forcibly kissing her during a drunken party at a CIA worksite — a case that happened just days after the spy agency promised to crack down on sexual misconduct in its ranks.
Donald J. Asquith said he would appeal the misdemeanor conviction following a brief judge trial in Loudoun County, entitling him under Virginia law to a jury trial on the same allegations. Asquith, who retired after last year's attack, was sentenced to a day in jail, a year of probation and a $2,500 fine.
“It's a vindication,” said Kevin Carroll, an attorney for the victim and several other women who have come forward to Congress and authorities with their own accounts of sexual assaults and unwanted touching within the agency. "She thought she had to stand up for younger women so that they didn’t have to go through something similar."
The CIA said it “acted swiftly” within days of receiving a report of the assault to restrict Asquith's contact with the victim. "CIA takes allegations of sexual assault and harassment extremely seriously," the agency said in a statement.
Asquith's attorney, John Katz, did not respond to requests for comment. He indicated in court that Asquith was too intoxicated to recall what happened at the party.
Asquith's case is at least the third in recent years involving a CIA officer facing trial in court over sexual misconduct. Last week, Brian Jeffrey Raymond was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for drugging, photographing and sexually assaulting more than two dozen women while he was a CIA officer in various foreign postings. And next month, a now-former CIA officer trainee faces a second trial on state charges for allegedly attacking a woman with a scarf inside a stairwell at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Asquith was charged in April following a monthslong sheriff’s probe into the boozy party in an off-site CIA office attended by at least a dozen people celebrating Asquith's 50th birthday.
The victim, a CIA contractor, told authorities she repeatedly rebuffed Asquith’s advances but that he kept pulling closer, rubbing her leg without her consent and making a series of inappropriate sexual comments, as well as “grunting noises and thrusting motions.” Asquith then “placed his hand up her skirt to her thigh numerous times causing her skirt to lift up, possibly exposing her underwear,” according to court documents.
The woman told investigators she slapped Asquith’s hand away and got up to leave, but that he intervened as she approached the door and asked for a “booby hug” before grabbing her with both hands around her back and rubbing his groin and chest on her. She said Asquith then “forcibly hugged her and kissed all over her face and mouth without her consent.”
The woman, who spoke to congressional staffers about the attack just last week, told the judge Wednesday of the anguish and sleepless nights she's faced since coming forward.
"In only 45 minutes, Mr. Asquith utterly decimated 30 years of painstaking professionalism, dedication and even a reputation,” she said in court.
“No one nor any institution has yet been willing to hold Mr. Asquith accountable for his grievous decisions and actions,” she added. “If we keep treating these cases like they are parking violations, we all lose.”
