Judge grants lawyers more time in case of MDA employee charged with knowingly taking home classified, secret documents

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — A new motion in the case against a Missile Defense Agency employee accused of taking classified and secret documents home has been granted, documents state.

Federal documents show that both the United States and the attorneys for Ewa Ciszak filed a joint motion on July 1 to toll a grand jury presentment.

Ciszak is federally charged with removing and retaining classified documents/materials from her workplace office between January 2025 and June 2025.

According to the document, this motion states that the tolling of a grand jury presentment would allow both parties “sufficient time to investigate the facts of this case further and engage in plea negotiations.”

The motion to toll says that Ciszak understands that she has the right for the case to be presented to a grand jury within 30 days of her June 20 arrest, which would be July 20. However, with the granted toll, it extends the presentment to a grand jury by an additional 60 days, putting the new grand jury presentment date at September 18.

Chief United States Magistrate Judge John H. England, III granted the joint toll motion on July 1, roughly two hours after the motion was filed and input into the federal court system, time stamps show.

Court records indicate that Ciszak has been employed by the Department of Defense at the Missile Defense Agency since January 2023.

The federal court documents stated that on June 16, Judge Herman N. Johnson, Jr. signed a search warrant authorizing the FBI to search Ciszak’s house, person, devices and her vehicle. The documents said the warrant was executed on June 18.

“Immediately prior to execution of the warrant, Agents again observed Ciszak remove material bearing classification markings from MDA in a backpack and travel to her residence,” documents said.

Records show that Agents also found more MDA materials bearing classification markings throughout other locations inside Ciszak’s house.

Also in a search of her vehicle and house, Agents found documents with markings indicating the information inside them was “secret.”

In an interview with Ciszak, court documents say she acknowledged, “in sum, substance, and in part, that she had received training in the proper handling of classified material.” The interview also revealed that she knew she was bringing home these “classified” and “secret” documents, knowing she wasn’t allowed to do so.

“Ciszak further claimed that before bringing documents home with her, she would remove ‘important’ information from them, ‘like numbers,’ such that the documents would not contain classified information despite the classification markings on the documents, but she acknowledged that there ‘probably’ had been important information and classified material on the documents she brought home to her residence,” federal documents say.

She was arrested in Georgia on June 20 and made her first court appearance on June 25.

The court found there was sufficient evidence to believe Ciszak knowingly removed the classified documents and retained them at an unauthorized location, two core components of the federal statute she’s charged with violating, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Herman Johnson said they could move forward with the case.

The defense pointed out that Ciszak was cooperative with federal agents and told them she brought the materials home because she worked on presentations with those materials for her job.