FBI Official Charged With Abduction, Assault

Man Accused of Terrorizing Woman; Defense Says Allegations ‘Out of Character’

Carl L. Spicocchi, 54, a former head of the FBI’s Toledo office who was on a temporary assignment in Washington, is being held without bond at the Arlington jail on two felony counts — abduction with intent to defile and a firearms charge, police said.

Spicocchi, who ran the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Toledo, has also been charged with misdemeanor assault and battery in the alleged Aug. 23 incident at the luxury high-rise Buchanan apartment building in Crystal City.

“The allegations against agent Spicocchi are totally out of character,” one of his attorneys, Thomas Abbenante, said yesterday. “He has an unblemished record in law enforcement and has dedicated his life to law enforcement and service to his country.”

At a bond hearing last month, another attorney for Spicocchi said his client has never been in trouble and is an upstanding FBI agent whose wife attended the hearing to support him. The couple live in the Toledo area, where they own a home, property records show.

Prosecutors said bond should be denied because of Spicocchi’s access to firearms through his job and his knowledge of surveillance and because of the alleged terrorization.

The alleged domestic incident, which sources said started because the woman wanted to break up with Spicocchi, ended when a neighbor called Arlington police at 10:36 p.m. to report that a woman was screaming that someone was trying to kill her, according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Arlington Circuit Court. Spicocchi had called in sick to work days before that, the affidavit said. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case has not gone to trial.

Spicocchi was a supervisor in the Toledo office about 18 months ago, when he was temporarily transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington, said Special Agent Scott T. Wilson, a spokesman for the FBI office in Cleveland. Wilson said the FBI would investigate the allegations.

Spicocchi lived in a rented apartment in a luxury high-rise building in Crystal City around the corner from the woman.

According to the affidavit, the woman, who called herself his girlfriend, said the two had stayed at her place the night before the alleged assault and had gotten up at 6 a.m. She then made him lunch, and he left the apartment.

As she drove away from the building later in the morning, she saw Spicocchi ducking in his car at the corner, watching her. She confronted him, telling him that she didn’t want to see him again until the next day, according to court records. “He admitted to following her and said that he thought she had another boyfriend,” the affidavit said.

He called her repeatedly throughout the day — the last time sounding very drunk about 3 p.m., she told officers.

When she returned to the apartment at South 23rd Street about two hours later, he was hiding in the closet, a kitchen knife and tape in his hands, she told police. He held her in the closet for about an hour, thrusting the knife at her throat several times, according to records.

Another time, he held her in the bathroom, where he fired his gun and forced it into her mouth several times, she told police. He repeatedly slapped her and threatened to kill her, she said.

The woman told police that she got away after hours of being detained by Spicocchi, who, she said, had thrown her on the kitchen floor and tried to punch her. She told police that he had been following her and that he had told her he “had a file on her and was going to ruin her,” according to court documents.

She also told police that she thought he was recording the incident with a silver device and that he owned four guns.

Police found Spicocchi in a hallway of the building after the neighbor’s call, they said. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 18.

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