Mass. woman pleads to impersonating FBI supervisor, ‘hiring’ Va. neighbors as assistants

Mass. woman pleads to impersonating FBI supervisor

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Massachusetts woman pleaded guilty to impersonating an FBI agent after fooling her former neighbors in northern Virginia into taking jobs as her assistant. Twenty-nine-year-old Brenna Reilly of Holyoke, Mass., was living in Arlington last year and told neighbors she was the FBI’s director of forensics. Two neighbors agreed to work as Reilly’s assistant. She gave them tasks that included writing condolence letters to family members of slain agents. But Reilly was never an FBI agent, the jobs were phony, and the assistants were never paid.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, said it remains unclear why Reilly conducted the hoax.

Following Tuesday’s guilty plea, Reilly faces up to three years in prison.