Another Former Embassy Employee Prosecuted; Limits of the Polygraph Exposed Yet Again

A former U.S. Embassy employee from Mexico City has been charged with a string of sexual predator offenses, as detailed in today's NYT story. The circumstances are highly reminiscent of a similar case from 2010, including the fact that both employees had been polygraphed multiple times without the exams detecting any criminal behavior. 

From the NYT story:

In a petition arguing that Mr. Raymond should not be held in custody, Mr. Kirby said that Mr. Raymond had taken more than 10 polygraph tests and had passed every one of them, including a recent one, which addressed the allegations against him.

So, what's the problem with the polygraph? It's almost like it doesn't work, or something. 

The polygraph was the invention of one William Marston, psychologist, lawyer, and cartoonist, who created both the polygraph and Wonder Woman - with her Golden Lasso of Truth - out of a stew of bondage fetishism, woman's suffrage, birth control, moral panic, feminism, and polyamory. 

It's a story far too strange for fiction. Please read The Secret History of Wonder Woman by the fine historian Jill Lapore, which also has a movie version. You can thank me later. 

Does Wonder Woman's Golden Lasso of Truth really work? Let us say that it works as well as the polygraph.

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P.S. I'd forgotten just how good The Secret History of Wonder Woman really is, but this blurb sums it up nicely:

“Even non-comix nerds (or those too young to remember Lynda Carter) will marvel at Jill Lepore’s deep dive into the real-world origins of the Amazonian superhero with the golden lasso. The fact that a polyamory enthusiast created her partly as a tribute to the reproductive-rights pioneer Margaret Sanger is, somehow, only the fourth or fifth most interesting thing in Ms. Woman’s bizarre background.” — New York Magazine

  

Shocking Revelation About Andrew Warren

The WaPo's SpyTalk column has some more details on the arrest of Andrew Warren, the former CIA Station Chief who today resides in the hospital wing of the Norfolk, Virginia, City Jail.

Ex-CIA fugitive was subdued with Taser:

Ex-CIA operative Andrew Warren had to be subdued twice with electric shocks when a fugitive task force tried to arrest him at a Norfolk hotel this week, according to law enforcement sources.

“He appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” a law enforcement official, who asked for anonymity in exchange for quoting from a field report on the incident, said of Warren.

The official said that Warren, ordered to put his hands behind his head, “made numerous affirmative movements toward his mid-torso,” when police spotted a gun handle in his waistband.

Police then shocked Warren, 42, with a Taser, which shoots an electrically charged wire at a target. When Warren continued to struggle, he was “dry-tasered,” or stunned with a direct application to his back.

He was tasered twice? I'll bet that hurt.

Some of his former colleagues, however, say they were not surprised at the turn of events.

They say that Warren, a Muslim convert, had earned an unsavory reputation long before his prestigious Algiers assignment, citing what they said was a habit of frequenting strip clubs and prostitutes with his informants.

“He was despised by his peers, in training and in the division, after graduation,” said one former colleague, echoing the views of a handful of others.

“His conduct in Algeria was not a surprise or aberration. These personality and performance issues were on display in his three previous tours.”

There's a bit more background on Warren and his fast-rising, and even faster-falling, CIA career from ABC News.

"Warren ... Andrew Warren"

A bit more news came out today that clarifies yesterday's arrest of Andrew Warren, the former CIA Station Chief who is currently awaiting trial on charges of sexual assault allegedly committed while he was posted at U.S. Embassy Algiers.

It turns out that Warren had failed to appear for a court hearing in Washington DC last Wednesday, after which a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Warren, however, was already in hiding by then because back on April 3 his neighbors in Norfolk, Virginia, had called the police to report him for indecent exposure.

Judging by the quotes from "Stacy" and "Jessica" in the news stories linked above, Mr. Warren sounds like quite the suave character. A real smooth operator. Actually, he sounds a lot more like a pimp than like James Bond.

Former CIA Algiers Station Chief Arrested Again

When I'd last heard of him, Andrew M. Warren, the former CIA Station Chief in Algiers who is under indictment for sexual assaults allegedly committed while he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, Algeria, was coming up for a trial date in June.

This afternoon at 4PM, Warren was arrested at a hotel in Norfolk, Virginia, by agents of the Diplomatic Security Service, Deputy U.S. Marshals, and local police, on both a local arrest warrant and a federal warrant.

No news has been released yet beyond the sketchy facts of his arrest. However, that there was a local arrest warrant suggests to me that Warren has committed new offenses. And the federal warrant suggests that Mr. Warren may have violated the terms of his pretrial release. He was armed with a pistol when he was arrested today, which is probably another violation of the terms of his release.

Explosive Allegations Reported by ABC News

ABC News is reporting this bad news this evening.

The CIA's station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.

The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.

The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

"It has the potential to be quite explosive if it's not handled well by the United States government," said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in women's issues in the Middle East.

If the Ambassador found cause to send him home, I have to assume the allegations against the station chief aren't frivolous.

This is so wrong on so many levels, not least of which is the counterintelligence one.

Here's a detail that really struck me:

One of the alleged victims reportedly said she met the CIA officer at a bar in the U.S. embassy and then was taken to his official station chief residence where she said the sexual assault took place.

Embassy bar and embassy residence? Let's just say that the U.S. embassy community members in Algiers live in very close proximity to each other. The station chief couldn't have expected that to go unnoticed. Did he think he could explain it away as operational activity?

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Update: ABC News has now posted the Affidavit in Support of a Search Warrant for the station chief's laptop computer.

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Tidbit: He's the author of a 2002 novel, The People of the Veil, described by Amazon.com as follows:

In the midst of a bloody civil war in Algeria, and left in charge of the American Embassy in Algiers, Consul, Nick Phillips, is forced to make a decision that will have far reaching ramifications. An Islamic revolution is in the process of taking place and based upon information from his friend Sami, an Algerian detective, Nick fears the imminent attack by terrorists on the US Embassy with the goal of killing all Americans. Because of the deteriorating security situation, Nick orders an evacuation of the embassy. Nick goes head to head with Abu Fahad, leader of a violent Islamic terrorist cell, who has already killed the Prime Minister and several senior Algerian leaders, including Nick?s girlfriend?s family. In a race with the ultimate consequences, Nick, Sami, and his girlfriend must escape from terrorists who will stop at nothing to kill them and every other American in Algeria.

The following reader comment was added this evening to the Amazon page on The People of the Veil:

I haven't read it, but I am curious if the brave and so honorable protagonist uses Xanax and Valium to subdue and interrogate ruthless female enemy agents posing as nice, modest women while in Algeria?

If not in this book, perhaps in the sequel, which I understand a CIA operative with embassy cover manages to terribly harm the US reputation, feed Al Qaeda's hate machine, and endanger the lives of countless Americans in the Middle East -- all while having sworn to defend our country? That would be a great story!

A biography of Warren on his publisher's website has these details:

Andrew M. Warren grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia. An expert in Middle Eastern affairs, Mr. Warren served as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. State Department (1997-2001); during his tenure, he spent two years in Kuwait at the American Embassy in addition to traveling extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to his service at the State Department, he worked with the National Security Agency. Mr. Warren obtained a Masters Degree in Middle East History and Arabic from Indiana University; and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Norfolk State University.

Mr. Warren's career in the Foreign Service, and now as an author, has allowed him to fulfill his lifelong dream of combining his myriad of experiences and his love of writing into one career. Mr. Warren injects a cultural, intellectual, psychological realism into his writing that could only have come about by his many years of living and working abroad. He currently resides in New York City.

Prior to his service at the State Department, he worked with the National Security Agency???