A woman who was shot by the CIA Police after crashing outside the front gates of the intelligence agency’s headquarters in Langley in May 2025 has pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges.
Monia Spadaro, a 28-year-old identified in court documents as an Arlington resident, pleaded guilty yesterday (Monday) to disregarding a law enforcement signal for her to stop and driving while under the influence of alcohol, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced today.
Spadaro agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors months after she was convicted by a federal jury in Alexandria of driving under the influence, reckless driving and eluding the police.
According to court documents, that Oct. 2 conviction was vacated at the request of Spadaro’s defense attorney after a juror admitted “that she had googled the case the night before” the jury began deliberating on Oct. 1, violating a court directive.
Though the juror was replaced with an alternate, the court had failed to properly instruct the jury to “begin its deliberations anew” before the verdict was issued, the defense said. Spadaro’s lawyer also took issue with the court limiting the evidence he could present during the trial about the extent of the injuries his client sustained from being shot multiple times.
“The Defense tried to show that the shooting and the potential consequences to the government, the CIA, and the shooter created a bias with regard to the government’s evidence and the government’s characterization of the Defendant,” defense counsel Alan J. Cilman wrote when calling for a new trial. “In terms of what the defense was trying to accomplish, the Court’s limitations of the evidence were harmful and impeded the defense.”
In January, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles granted the motion for a new trial, scheduling it to begin March 17.
However, Spadaro ultimately opted to plead guilty instead of proceeding with a new trial. The reasons for the change are unclear, but on March 12, she asked for a public defender because she “could no longer afford previously-retained counsel,” and the trial was put on hold so the new counsel could have time to review the case, court documents show.
Spadaro was driving a gray Toyota Corolla on Route 123 (Dolley Madison Blvd) around 3:38 a.m. on May 22, 2025 when she turned into and tried to enter the CIA’s headquarters campus through the outbound lanes.
Despite attempts by three different CIA Police officers to get her to stop or pull over, she continued to drive toward the security gate while speeding up and repeatedly changing lanes between ingoing and outbound traffic, according to statements from prosecutors and an affidavit from a CIA Police officer who investigated the incident.
“Officer 3 moved into the innermost outbound lane and yelled at SPADARO to stop,” prosecutors said. “SPADARO did not stop and continued driving in the innermost outbound lane. Contemporaneously, Officer 3 fired his weapon and SPADARO maneuvered out of the innermost outbound lane, driving around the officer into the inbound lanes.”
Spadaro then crashed into a barrier at the main security gate and was transported to a hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds.
While prosecutors didn’t mention how many times she was shot, Cilman said in court documents that officers shot at her “multiple times” and struck her four times.
Spadaro later told hospital personnel that she had been drinking at a restaurant in Tysons, the affidavit said. According to prosecutors, laboratory tests found that her blood alcohol concentration that night was 0.183 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters, more than double the legal limit of 0.08.
Court records show that Spadaro has had issues with driving under the influence before. She pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in Arlington General District Court in 2021, receiving a suspended 180-day sentence, and to reckless driving in Fairfax County General District Court in 2022.
Amended from what was initially a DWI, the Fairfax County charge led to a 30-day suspended jail sentence, a year of probation and a six-month suspension of her license.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Spadaro was also found guilty of driving while drunk in D.C. in 2023.
She is scheduled to be sentenced for the CIA incident on Aug. 13, potentially facing up to five years in prison.
This story was updated to correct the spelling of Monia Spadaro’s name.
