A former uncover CIA officer has launched a $25 million lawsuit against the spy agency in federal court, claiming he was wrongly fired after a senior manager fabricated allegations to tarnish his career, have him sacked and keep him from marrying the woman he loves. The officer filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia under the pseudonym Mack L. Charles in January. Charles' lawsuit alleges that he had a solid record as a CIA officer, reaching the bureaucratic equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the military. He served in a war zone, won awards and received good ratings, the lawsuit says. A former uncover CIA officer has launched a $25 million lawsuit claiming he was fired after a senior manager tarnished his record and prevented him from marrying the woman he loves . But he ran afoul of his bosses after he filed an age discrimination complaint in 2009, the lawsuit says. His complaint asserted that managers sought to impede his romantic relationship with another CIA non-official cover officer - 21 years his junior - who became his fiancee, the suit says. The pair had planned to spy overseas together as a 'tandem couple,' but haven't spoken to her since his firing, the lawsuit says. In March 2011, Charles claims that a senior manager 'took the monstrous step' of ordering the woman to cease all contact with him, threatening her with an assignment at CIA headquarters in Washington if she disobeyed, effectively an end to her career overseas, reports the Daily Beast. Charles says he is suffering depression as a result of having no contact with his fiancée who he 'thinks about [her] every day and misses her as much today as on the first day of his forced separation from her.' The suit also accuses the CIA of illegally barring the former officer from publishing his novel, tentatively titled Madhouse: A Forbidden Novel of The CIA. The CIA allocated billions of dollars to expanding the NOC program after 9/11, but the effort was largely a failure, claims Mack Charles in his lawsuit . The CIA faces occasional employment lawsuits like any other government agency, but this one is unusual because of the plaintiff's claim to have been a non-official cover officer, or NOC, in CIA parlance. Most CIA case officers work out of embassies posing as diplomats, giving them a level of protection should they be arrested while committing espionage. NOCs pose as businessmen, scholars or scientists in an effort to distance them from the U.S. government and afford them access to people who would never set foot in a U.S. embassy. If caught spying overseas, they could be jailed. The NOC program is even more secretive than traditional espionage, and officers who participate often operate using their real names instead of aliases. The CIA allocated billions of dollars to expanding the NOC program after 9/11, but the effort was largely a failure, former officers have said — a charge Charles repeats in his lawsuit. The suit says the leader of the CIA's Global Deployment Initiative — its main non-official cover program — tried to get Charles fired in 2009, but a CIA board declined to take that step. Mack Charles filed his $25 million lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in January . Charles claims that another former agent Ishmael Jones was able to publish their book about life as a NOC . After that, the lawsuit says, another senior officer, who headed the Special Activities Division — the CIA's paramilitary arm — wrote a memo alleging that Charles had in the past fudged expense accounts. That allegation is false, the lawsuit claims, but it says the allegation led to Charles' termination in December 2010. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled against Charles' discrimination complaint. The lawsuit alleges that the officer who wrote the memo, who is not identified by name, had a 'checkered career' that included a drinking problem, and was asked to retire amid sexual harassment allegations. The head of the Global Deployment Initiative was a subpar officer who also abused alcohol, the lawsuit alleges, claiming that the 'multibillion-dollar' NOC program 'was shot through with waste, fraud, and abuse.' When he submitted his novel to the CIA's Publication Review Board, the lawsuit says, Charles was told he could not publish any of it for fear his true name, which he used while working undercover for the CIA, would be revealed. The suit notes that at least one other former NOC has published a book under a pseudonym, Ishmael Jones, while keeping his true name a secret. Jones did so without seeking permission from the CIA, leading the agency to obtain a court ruling in 2012 seizing the proceeds. Charles and his supporters are asking the public for financial donations to help fund his legal battle and have setup a GoFundMe.com page.
The former uncover CIA officer claims he was fired after a senior manager tarnished his record and prevented him from marrying the woman he loves . He filed the lawsuit under the pseudonym Mack L. Charles in January . Charles says he has suffered depression as a result of being prevented from contact with his fiancée . Lawsuit also accuses the CIA of illegally barring his novel, tentatively titled Madhouse: A Forbidden Novel of The CIA .