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A 28-year-old Arlington woman has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from a May 2025 encounter at CIA headquarters in Langley, where police shot her after she drove toward a security gate and crashed into a barrier.
Monia Spadaro pleaded guilty to disregarding a law enforcement signal to stop and driving under the influence of alcohol. She now faces up to five years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 13.
The plea agreement followed the reversal of Spadaro’s earlier convictions for driving under the influence, reckless driving and eluding police. A federal jury in Alexandria had convicted her on Oct. 2, but that verdict was vacated after a juror admitted searching for information about the case online the night before deliberations began.
The juror was replaced with an alternate. However, Spadaro’s defense argued that the jury had not been properly directed to restart its deliberations before reaching a verdict.
Defense attorney Alan J. Cilman also objected to restrictions on evidence about Spadaro’s injuries. He argued that details about officers shooting her multiple times were relevant to possible bias in the government’s evidence and portrayal of the case.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles granted Spadaro a new trial in January, initially setting it for March 17. Spadaro instead chose to plead guilty. Court documents do not explain that decision, though she requested a public defender on March 12 after saying she could no longer afford her retained attorney. The retrial was then delayed to give her new counsel time to examine the case.
The incident began around 3:38 a.m. on May 22, 2025, when Spadaro drove a gray Toyota Corolla from Route 123, also known as Dolley Madison Boulevard, toward the CIA campus. She attempted to enter through outbound lanes.
Prosecutors and a CIA Police affidavit said three officers tried to make her stop or pull over. Spadaro continued toward the gate while accelerating and repeatedly moving between inbound and outbound lanes.
One officer stepped into the innermost outbound lane and yelled for her to stop, according to prosecutors. When she continued driving, the officer fired. Spadaro maneuvered around the officer into the inbound lanes before striking a barrier at the main security gate.
She was taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds. Prosecutors did not specify how many times she was struck, but Cilman said in court filings that officers fired multiple times and hit her four times.
Spadaro later told hospital workers that she had been drinking at a restaurant in Tysons, according to the police affidavit. Laboratory testing placed her blood alcohol concentration at 0.183 grams per 100 milliliters—more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
Court records show previous alcohol-related driving cases. Spadaro pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in Arlington in 2021 and received a suspended 180-day sentence. In 2022, she pleaded guilty in Fairfax County to reckless driving after a charge initially filed as driving while intoxicated was amended. That case resulted in a suspended 30-day jail term, one year of probation and a six-month license suspension.
She was also found guilty of drunken driving in Washington, D.C., in 2023.