Raymond Davis, CIA Contractor, Charged With Felony in Parking Lot Skirmish
DOJ mum on investigation into Davis' previous shooting of two men in Pakistan.
Oct. 4, 2011 — -- Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who sparked a months-long international drama when he shot and killed two men in broad daylight on the streets of Pakistan in January, appeared in a Denver court today after being charged with a felony for his part a skirmish in a bagel shop parking lot.
Rob McCallum, a spokesman for the court who attended the hearing, told ABC News Davis was calm as he was read the charges against him, including second degree assault -- a felony that carries a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in prison. He was taken into custody after the hearing and a Colorado judge set bond at $10,000. As of this report, Davis was in the process of posting that bond, a spokesperson for the Douglas County Sheriff's Office said.
During a discussion of one provision of the assault charge -- specifically one that would at least temporarily strip Davis of his personal firearm -- an attorney for Davis revealed that after his troubled experience working for the CIA in Pakistan, Davis has become a firearms instructor often working in the Washington, D.C., area. The judge ruled that Davis would be allowed to use his firearm, but not in Colorado and only under supervision in the D.C. area, McCallum said.
Davis has not pleaded in the case and is not expected back in court until a preliminary hearing in December. An attorney for Davis, William Frankfurt, did not respond to requests for comment for this report.
Davis has already been the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for the deadly Pakistan shooting -- part of a promise Sen. John Kerry made to Pakistani officials in an effort to secure Davis' release from Pakistani prison in February. But a spokesperson for the DOJ refused to answer any of ABC News' questions Monday on the status of that investigation, seven months after Davis came home.
Cops: Raymond Davis, CIA Contractor, Slugs Man Over Parking
According to police, Davis, 37, and another man who identified himself as Jeff Maes, got into a verbal then physical altercation over a parking spot in front of a Denver bagel shop over the weekend.
"He literally parked his car behind me and started shouting at me and I says, 'You need to relax.' And he got out of the car," Maes told ABC News' Denver affiliate 7News. "When I got hit, I went back, I hit my back straight on the concrete and then, I don't know, I must've got up. I looked, he's standing there and I got up to defend myself and started again."
Maes said his two daughters, six and eight years old, cried after witnessing the fight.
Police arrested Davis and initially charged him with a pair of misdemeanors, noting that he was "the aggressor" in the fight. He was released on $1,750 bond, but Monday a Colorado district attorney announced Davis was to be charged with second degree assault. He is also charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct, the DA's office said.
Officials: Raymond Davis' Notoriety Doesn't Affect Assault Case
For a man whose job was to stay in the shadows, Davis found himself at the center of international spotlight for weeks after he was arrested in Pakistan Jan. 27 following the fatal shooting of two men on the streets of Lahore, Pakistan.
Davis was charged with the double murder and quickly questions emerged about who he was and for whom he worked. The official U.S. government line -- even reaching as high as President Obama -- was that Davis was just a "diplomat" who believed he was being robbed and should have been released due to diplomatic immunity.
But nearly a month after his arrest, U.S. officials told ABC News Davis was actually an independent contractor working for the CIA in Pakistan.
As high-level negotiations strained and the already rocky relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan worsened, the U.S. found an unusual way out of the diplomatic rift in March: the payment of "blood money" to the victims of the crime in exchange for Davis' release -- a somewhat common practice sanctioned by Pakistani law.
Both the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, whose officers arrested Davis, and the district attorney's office, which charged him with the felony, told ABC News that Davis' notoriety or government connections would not impact the proceedings against him.
"It doesn't matter who you are, you're all treated the same," Douglas County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Sgt. Ron Hanavan said.
