Woman playing detective in an FBI hat tells cop she’s a CIA agent, Indiana police say

An Indiana woman wearing an FBI hat in a stolen Dodge Charger told cops she worked for the CIA, police say.

Her story didn’t check out — even after insisting a police officer run her license through a database, records show.

Lisa Marie O’Donnell went to a South Bend, Indiana, gas station Friday to “investigate” a criminal case, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by McClatchy News. She asked the clerk to show her surveillance video recordings, police said.

The employee grew suspicious after O’Donnell claimed she was an FBI agent but didn’t have a badge, police said.

He called the real cops.

As O’Donnell was pulling out of the gas station, a police officer was driving in to investigate the case and spotted her, according to the affidavit.

The cop pulled her over and noticed she was wearing a white hat with FBI written on it, police said. Asked why she was at the gas station, O’Donnell told the cop that criminals were using counterfeit money and she’d been “working in this area for months,” according to the affidavit.

O’Donnell told the officer she worked for the CIA, police said.

When handing over her license, O’Donnell asked the officer to check her identification card because it will show her credentials, according to the affidavit. It didn’t, police said.

Instead, the cop learned O’Donnell had taken the Dodge Charger for a test drive from a dealership in a nearby town and never returned, police said. The vehicle had been reported stolen.

O’Donnell, 45, was charged with felony impersonation of a public servant. If convicted, she could go to prison for up to two and a half years, a St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman told McClatchy.

This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Woman playing detective in an FBI hat tells cop she’s a CIA agent, Indiana police say."