Former CIA officer calls for accountability after alleged sexual assault: “I was in the dark”

Jury selection begins Monday in a case involving a former CIA officer who said she was sexually assaulted by a colleague in July 2022 at the agency’s headquarters.

With the trial beginning, Rachel Cuda, the alleged victim, revealed her identity for the first time and spoke to CBS News. She said working at the CIA was a dream career until the summer of 2022 when she went for a walk at work with a close colleague who attacked her in a stairwell, she claimed.

“I felt this scarf come over my head. I turned around and my attacker said, ‘this is what I want to do to you,’ started to tighten it and then tried to lean in to kiss me,” Cuda said.

She said she pushed her offender off and told him to stop.

“I didn’t know what had just happened,” Cuda said. “No one had tried to touch me at work.”

Cuda said she tried to report what happened to her immediate supervisor and multiple other CIA offices, but said she discovered there was no formal process in place to handle claims of sexual misconduct.

“I was in the dark about how my case was being handled,” she said. “I was not given appropriate updates on what was being done to keep me safe.”

Cuda said CIA officials warned her that going to the police would violate the confidentiality agreements she made as an agency employee.

“I was very adamant. I wanna go to law enforcement, but I also wanna keep my career. There was no pathway to do that,” she said.

When a series of internal investigations cleared her alleged attacker of any wrongdoing, she turned outside of the CIA, filing a police report and seeking a protective order. She also shared her story with Congress, testifying behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee.

In total, 26 whistleblowers, including Cuda, spoke to the committee as part of a sweeping investigation into the CIA. The results found that the agency “failed to handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment.”

Last December, Congress passed legislation requiring the agency to create new policies and trainings for hearing cases of sexual assault and harassment, provide a special victims investigator for every case and allow victims to report confidentially.

“We are seeing more people come forward and we are encouraging people to come forward,” said CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp. 

Thorp acknowledges that prior to the changes, the reporting process was confusing.

“The nature of our work does require many officers to be undercover. I will say that one of the major steps that we’ve taken has been to tell people they can go to law enforcement,” Thorp said.

Cuda said she thinks reporting her allegations outside the CIA led to her firing last year. The agency denies it retaliated against her. She said she is still hearing from victims who say they don’t feel safe reporting their cases to CIA officials.

Thorp’s message to employees is to come forward and share their concerns.

“We understand that we have more work to do,” she said.

County prosecutors in Virginia ultimately charged Cuda’s alleged attacker with misdemeanor battery, not sexual assault. A recent legal filing by his attorney argued he had been falsely accused, that he gently draped the scarf over Cuda as a lighthearted joke and had no intentions of harming her.

“I did not do what I’ve been accused of,” the alleged attacker previously told the Washington Post. “I want to be very clear that I did not in any way put this person in any kind of danger, harm them, or try to kiss them, and I look forward to proving that in court.”

Cuda told CBS News she plans to testify at the trial.