A 44-year-old Annandale man has pleaded guilty to dressing up as a federal law enforcement agent and showing up at a Northern Virginia polling site during the 2024 general election, complete with a fake badge, a fake FBI sweatshirt and an air pistol made to look like a Glock. Alex Nguyen twice visited the polling site outside Timber Lane Elementary School in Falls Church, telling election officials he was assigned to the FBI's election security team.
Sunglasses, a Fake Badge and a Replica Glock
According to WJLA, Nguyen wore sunglasses, a blue FBI-logo sweatshirt and a fake badge while carrying the realistic-looking air pistol. He presented fake credentials directly to the polling site's chief election official, and those credentials reportedly bore the words “special agent,” a signature purporting to belong to the FBI director, and language claiming the identification had been issued by order of the U.S. attorney general.
Per authorities, Nguyen first arrived at the polling site at 9:30 a.m. and came back later at 4:20 p.m. He was not authorized to use an FBI badge or FBI credentials of any kind, and he had never actually worked with the bureau, the station's report notes.
A Confession Without a Political Motive
Nguyen was arrested later the same day he left the school for the second time. According to court documents cited by the station, he confessed to pretending to be an FBI agent shortly after his arrest. Court documents further indicate Nguyen said he adopted the disguise to feel respected rather than out of any political motive, per the same account.
The polling site incident unfolded during the 2024 general election, which featured a presidential contest between then-Vice President Kamala Harris and now-President Donald Trump. Nguyen is expected to be sentenced on January 14, 2027, and faces three years in prison, according to the report.
Broader Warnings About FBI Impersonation
The case surfaces alongside a separate, ongoing warning from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, which says criminal scammers have been impersonating FBI personnel as part of a fraud scheme, according to ic3.gov. The supplied evidence does not establish any direct connection between that scheme and Nguyen's case, and the two remain separate matters.
There is also a discrepancy in publicly available accounts of Nguyen's age. While WJLA identifies him as 44, a December 2024 snippet from electionline Weekly described a Virginia man named Alex Nguyen, then 24, who had shown up twice at Timber Lane Elementary School. It is not clear from the available reporting whether these accounts describe the same person or reflect an error in one of the reports.
