Alleged 'groomer' former CIA spy has disappeared: report

25 July 2023

Ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Shaun Wiggins, who allegedly lured a young woman "into having ongoing sexual relations with him beginning in 2017 under the guise of teaching her to use her body 'as a weapon,' has gone missing, The Daily Beast exclusively reports.

Per The Beast, "the alleged assaults" against the woman referred to as "Doe" in the suit, happened over her "14-month tenure at Soteryx, the firm Wiggins launched in 2016," but "Wiggins' promises to help" her "get hired by the CIA fell flat," eventually leading her to undergo "psychiatric care instead of realizing her dream career."

In an earlier interview with the news outlet, Doe's lawyer Megan Goddard said, "I am grateful for the Adult Survivors Act, which has allowed so many survivors of sexual assault and abuse to hold their abusers accountable. Abusers should always be held responsible for the harm they inflict, but the window for survivors to file lawsuits under the Adult Survivors Act ends in November of 2023."

According to the report, "Doe is asking for undetermined damages for sexual assault, battery, and infliction of emotional distress, as well as gender discrimination and sexual harassment."

Furthermore, the former agent is expected to submit "formal response" to the lawsuit by August 18, 2023.

The Beast reports Doe's legal team paid "a skip tracer in hopes of tracking" Wiggins," but he remains frustratingly out of reach, making it all but impossible to serve him with legal papers to get the civil case underway, according to court records and a source with knowledge of the situation."

The Beast also notes:

On the morning of July 19, the process server performed a 'skip trace' on Wiggins to pull up his last known address, according to the motion. Although he worked in New York, and was thought to reside there, the results came back showing an address in Englewood, Colorado, the motion states. But when the process server showed up the next day, Wiggins wasn't there.

On the same day, according to the report, "Doe's lawyers emailed Bell to ask if he would be willing to accept service but they received an 'out of office' auto-reply, informing them that Bell would be away until the end of July, without access to email," according to the motion.

Now, Doe's legal team is seeking "an additional 45 days to serve Wiggins" from the court, "hoping they'll be able to locate the absent defendant" allowing the suit to move forward.

"As became increasingly clear, though… Wiggins was not conducting an actual CIA recruitment," the lawsuit says. "Rather… Wiggins was operating as a 'groomer,’ using his position of actual and apparent authority and power to cause [Doe] to accede to his repeated sexual assaults."

Wiggins' attorney, Jon Bell, according to The Beast, "previously told local Saratoga Springs newspaper The Daily Gazette that Wiggins 'denies the allegations against him,' calling them 'baseless and untruthful.'"

He added, "We expect that Mr. Wiggins will be fully exonerated."

The Daily Beast's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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