(USNewsMag.com) – A federal contractor hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was arrested in Washington, D.C. after he stole one of their vehicles from FBI headquarters.
On Tuesday, February 6th, a man from Virginia named John Worrell was arrested after he allegedly stole a vehicle from the FBI headquarters in Washington, drove it to another state, and tried to gain access to a different FBI facility. Court documents also revealed that a handgun magazine was discovered in the vehicle, which belonged to the agent who drove it.
Worrell was employed by an outside contracting agency working for the federal government and assigned to the headquarters for a job. Prosecutors say he stole a green Ford sedan from the headquarters garage and drove it to another FBI facility located in Vienna, Virginia. Investigators said Worrell then showed a federal agent at the Vienna facility the credentials of the agent who used the car in order to try and gain entry. Although Worrell was authorized to be at the FBI’s Washington headquarters, he is not an agent or any type of law enforcement officer.
According to the court documents, Worrell told personnel at the Vienna facility that he had “a classified meeting” to attend. He could not produce the “necessary access cards,” which prompted officials to deny Worrell entry. Worrell then allegedly made another attempt to enter the facility, was denied once again, and spent around 45 minutes sitting in the parking lot.
Eventually, Worrell gave them his true identification, and security officials subsequently called the police. After the FBI-issued car was searched, police found a loaded magazine for a handgun, which was located inside a fanny pack in the vehicle that belonged to the agent the car was assigned to. Worrell told officers he wasn’t aware of any weapons inside the car.
When questioned by investigators, Worrell bizarrely claimed that he believed he was “receiving coded messages” through various sources, from emails to whispers and other signs “over the court of several weeks.” He told investigators the messages indicated he was “in danger” and that he was trying to get to “a secure facility” in order to be safe.
According to the FBI, the keys were left inside the vehicle because of limited parking at the headquarters. The protocol is so “authorized personnel” can move the vehicles “on an as-needed basis.”
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