Fake FBI agent hired neighbor, got him to transcribe her 'interrogations'

To read the arrest warrant for Brenna Marie Reilly is to ask why.

The 29-year-old told her Arlington neighbors she was an FBI agent. She hired one of them to be her administrative assistant, telling him she was the bureau's director of forensics, according to the affidavit.

She posted him inside her apartment, and tasked him with transcribing interrogations she claimed to have conducted. She had him edit condolence letters to family members of CIA officers purportedly killed in Afghanistan – operatives she claimed were working for her. She spoke to him of traveling to Iraq, the affidavit states.

"It was never clear why she did this," said Peter Carr, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride.

Reilly pleaded guilty Tuesday to impersonating an FBI agent, punishable by up to three years in prison, Carr said. Her attorney couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

While faking it, Reilly promised her assistant she'd get him a service gun, took him to gun shops, but only ended up buying him a knife. It all came apart in January, according to the affidavit, when one of the employee’s parents contacted the real FBI to report Reilly’s behavior. The employee had never been paid.

-- Dan Morse