The Prouty Case Continued: Curiouser and Curiouser

As part of the PR campaign to honor the convicted Hizbullah-related Nada Nadim Prouty, Gannett News put out this picture and caption earlier this month:

Since she lost her citizenship two years ago in a naturalization scandal, Nada Prouty, a former covert CIA agent and world traveler has been living a quiet life in suburban Washington, trying to get her reputation back. At her Vienna, Va. home she displays terrorism investigation awards from the FBI on Monday, March 1, 2010. (Gannett, Joe Brier)

Here are a few questions about "Nada Prouty" AKA "Nada Nadim Deladurantaye" and AKA "Nada Nadim Alley" --

Why does Gannett call her "a former covert CIA agent?" (She was so covert the FBI and the CIA didn't know about her.) And what's a "world traveler?" A euphemism for spy?

Let's not forget NNP was convicted in a Federal court. She admitted to committing serious crimes. Yet, she and her sister-in-law got off with a slap on the wrist. Here are excerpts from the 2007 Justice Department release detailing her crimes after her conviction.

Former Employee of CIA and FBI Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy, Unauthorized Computer Access and Naturalization Fraud -- November 13, 2007

Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizbullah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

At a hearing in Detroit before the U.S. District Court Judge Avern Cohn, Prouty entered a plea of guilty to counts one, two and three of a second superseding information. Count one of the information charges conspiracy, for which the maximum penalty is five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Count two charges unauthorized computer access, for which the maximum penalty is one year imprisonment and a $100,000 fine. Count three charges naturalization fraud, for which the maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, and requires the court to de-naturalize the defendant.

According to documents filed in court by the government, Prouty first entered the United States from Lebanon on June 24, 1989, on a one-year, non-immigrant student visa. After her visa expired, she remained in the country, residing in Taylor, Mich., with her sister, Elfat El Aouar, and an individual named Samar Khalil Nabbouth. In order to remain in the United States and evade U.S. immigration laws, Prouty later offered money to an unemployed U.S. citizen to marry her. On August 9, 1990, Prouty married the U.S. citizen. As planned, Prouty never lived with her fraudulent “husband,” but continued to live with her sister and Nabbouth.

Prouty later submitted a series of false, fraudulent and forged documents and letters to federal immigration officials to verify the validity of the fraudulent marriage in order to obtain permanent residency status, and, later, U.S. citizenship, thereby committing naturalization fraud. On Aug. 5, 1994, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service granted Prouty U.S. citizenship under the name “Nada Nadim Deladurantaye.” The following year, she filed for a divorce from her fraudulent husband, and later obtained a U.S. passport, which she used to travel overseas.

Talal Khalil Chahine

According to court documents, from May 1992 through April 1993, and again, from August through November 1994, Prouty was employed as a waitress and hostess at La Shish Inc., a chain of Middle Eastern restaurants in Detroit that was owned by Talal Khalil Chahine. During this time, Chahine wrote a letter for submission into Prouty’s immigration file attesting to the validity of Prouty’s false marriage.

Chahine is currently a fugitive believed to be in Lebanon. He, along with Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, and others were charged in 2006 in the Eastern District of Michigan with tax evasion in connection with a scheme to conceal more than $20 million in cash received by La Shish restaurants and to route funds to persons in Lebanon. Last month, Chahine was also charged in the Eastern District of Michigan, along with a senior ICE official in Detroit and others in a bribery and extortion conspiracy in which federal immigration benefits were allegedly awarded to illegal aliens in exchange for money.

Employment at FBI and CIA

In April 1999, through a series of false representations and use of her fraudulently procured proof of U.S. citizenship, Prouty, then known as “Nada Nadim Alley,” obtained employment as a special agent of the FBI. It was a prerequisite to FBI employment that she be a U.S. citizen. As a special agent with the FBI, Prouty was granted a security clearance and assigned to the FBI’s Washington Field Office to work on an extraterritorial squad investigating crimes against U.S. persons overseas. During her tenure with the FBI, Prouty was not assigned to work on investigations involving the international terrorist group Hizballah.

In August 2000, Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, entered into a marriage with Talal Khalil Chahine, the owner of La Shish Inc. In September 2000, Prouty, while employed as an FBI special agent, used the FBI’s computerized Automated Case System (ACS), without authorization, to query her own name, her sister’s name, and that of her brother-in-law, Talal Khalil Chahine. In addition, on or about June 4, 2003, Prouty accessed the FBI’s ACS and obtained information from a national security investigation into Hizbullah that was being conducted by the FBI’s Detroit Field Office.

According to court documents, in August 2002, Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, and her brother-in-law, Talal Khalil Chahine, attended a fundraising event in Lebanon where the keynote speakers were Chahine himself and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Sheikh Fadlallah had previously been designated by the U.S. government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist based upon his status as a leading ideological figure with Hizbullah....

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