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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Is CBS about to Give a Medal to a Possible Hizbullah Spy? Is a Presidential Pardon Next?

Here’s the 60 Minutes promo for Sunday’s program as posted by CBS on YouTube:

"Ex FBI & CIA terror fighter Nada Prouty was herself accused of aiding terrorism, but in her first interview, she denies she was anything other than a patriot. 60 Minutes investigates her case Sunday."

The 60 minutes YouTube clip shows an attractive, articulate woman who vaguely looks like actress Julie Roberts. “I love the country, I believe in the country.” The popular TV show will present Nada Nadine Prouty this Sunday as a terrorist fighter who, she states, she “went to Iraq and put her life on the line.”

Here’s a reminder of who Nada Nadine Prouty is: She’s a Lebanese national who fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship and used it to secure employment in the FBI and CIA. Her sisters and sister-in-law also obtained citizenship through sham marriages, and one sister later married a Detroit restaurateur suspected of raising $20 million for Hizbullah. He fled to Lebanon before his arrest.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, NNP pleaded guilty in November 2007 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.”

Click here to read the Justice Department’s detailed report, “Former Employee of CIA and FBI Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy, Unauthorized Computer Access and Naturalization Fraud.”

Prouty’s roommate (and one-time sister-in-law) Lebanese citizen Samar Spinelli was also arrested on naturalization fraud. Here’s the Justice Department report on her. Spinelli was able to sneak into the U.S. Marine Corps where she was a commissioned captain and served in Iraq.

Prouty’s sister, Elfat El Aouar, was sentenced to 90 days in prison and stripped of her U.S. citizenship for citizenship fraud. She served the sentence simultaneously with an 18-month term she received in May 2007 for helping Chahine in his tax evasion and Hizbullah fundraising scheme. Chahine’s son, Khalil Talal Chahine, is serving a 20-30 year sentence for murder.

Incredibly, when it came time to be sentenced in May 2008 Prouty received no jail time, $975 in fines and fees, and no deportation (the Feds reportedly requested no deportation because she knew too much about American intelligence agencies). Likewise, Spinelli received no jail time and a $500 fine.

Watch NBC News’ account which reports, "NNP had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees."

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Prouty and Spinelli Verdicts: A Fine, a Commendation, and a Walk

The verdicts are in from Federal Court on former FBI and CIA agent Nada Nadime Prouty and her roommate (and one-time sister-in-law) Marine Corps Capt. Samar Spinelli. The two Lebanese citizens were involved in citizenship fraud. Prouty also peeked into secret files on Hizbullah.

Prouty: No jail time, $975 fines and fees, and no deportation (the Feds requested no deportation because she knows too much about American intelligence agencies).

Spinelli: No jail time and a $500 fine.

Federal Judge Avern Cohn blasted media coverage of the case and added that the women had served their country (the U.S.) with distinction. Bloggers, including this one, pegged her as a potential Hizbullah mole.

As usual, the best coverage of the case is David Ashenfelter's in the Detroit Free Press.

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Update on Possible Hizbullah Mole:Despite Guilty Plea, Will She Get Off with a Slap of the Hand?

Since November 2007, this blog has been following the security ramifications of Nadia Nadime Prouty’s arrest. The Lebanese national fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship and used it to secure employment in the FBI and CIA. Her two sisters also obtained citizenship through sham marriages, and one later married a Detroit restaurateur suspected of fundraising for Hizbullah. He fled to Lebanon before his arrest.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, NNP pleaded guilty at the time 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.”

Prouty’s sentence will be handed down on May 13.

Last week, in an effort to knock down Prouty’s sentence to probation, her lawyer presented to a federal judge a pre-sentencing memo detailing some of her activities in the CIA and FBI. He claimed that she was involved in the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000 and the investigation of the assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan in 2002. The next year, the lawyer claimed, she joined the CIA and worked in Baghdad. His memo also reveals that Prouty worked in Islamabad Pakistan as a legal attaché.

Imagine the access NNP had to top-secret intel working in the FBI and CIA headquarters and then in the various epicenters of Islamic terror.

According to Detroit Free Press reporter, David Ashenfelter, who has been following the case from its start, Prouty “likely will be allowed to stay in the U.S. because of the jobs she held at the FBI and CIA, authorities said.” Read Ashenfelter’s “Fake citizen worked on major terror cases.”

Despite her confessing to accessing files on Hizbullah and her family ties to a Hizbullah fundraiser, NNP could get off and her deportation could be cancelled. Amazing.

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Update on Detroit's Hizbullah Sisters: Wife of Hizbullah Fundraiser Sentenced for Citizenship Fraud

Elfat El Aouar, the wife of Michigan restaurateur and Hizbullah fundraiser Talal Chahine, was sentenced this week to 90 days in prison and stripped of her U.S. citizenship for citizenship fraud, the Freep reported today. She will serve the sentence simultaneously with an 18-month term she received last May for helping Chahine in his tax evasion and Hizbullah fundraising scheme.

According to the Freep, "two of al Aouar’s sisters — including Nada Nadim Prouty, the former FBI agent and CIA operative who pleaded guilty late last year — were targeted in the investigation. A former roommate , a decorated Marine Corps captain [and ‘sister-in-law’ in the marriage scams], also pleaded guilty in the case.”

All the women involved are Lebanese.

Prouty, the Freep continued, “pleaded guilty to accessing an FBI computer system she wasn’t authorized to use to find out whether she, her sister or Chahine were being investigated and to read details about a Detroit-based investigation of Hizbullah. It’s unclear what Prouty, 37 (pictured), of Vienna, Va., did with the information. Authorities suspect she shared it with Chahine. A sentencing date hasn’t been set in her case.”

This blog reported on the case extensively in November 2007, including speculation that the women were Hizbullah moles and the fact that Chahine’s son, Khalil Talal Chahine, is serving a 20-30 year sentence for murder.

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Mughniyeh's Angels

The world is learning just how dangerous arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was. His victims numbered in the thousands. His terrorist crimes were conducted on several continents with the extensive collaboration of Iranian embassies, logistical support, intelligence and operatives around the world. He may have had ties to al Qaeda. Mughniyeh reportedly attended meetings between Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Assad, and he wasn’t there because they needed another poker hand. The Iranian Foreign Minister attended Mughniyeh’s funeral today.

It’s time to recall a November 2007 column on this blog suggesting that Mughniyeh and his operatives placed moles in the FBI, CIA and American armed forces. We now know that he was hunting Western targets for 25 years. Mughniyeh made use of Hizbullah and Iranian “assets” in various place around the world, and they were used to attack Israeli and Jewish targets in Argentina in the 90’s. Presumably, Iran and Hizbullah’s reach and resources have grown since then, particularly in Latin America. The insertion of moles, agents and sleeper cells in “countries of interest” makes perfect sense.

Isn’t it curious that nothing has been heard recently about the two possible moles, FBI/CIA employee Nadia Nadim Prouty (pictured) and her sister-in-law, U.S. Marine Captain Samar Khalil Spinelli? Prouty was caught going through FBI files on Hizbullah fundraising. At some point in her career, according to published accounts, she was working for the CIA in Iraq interrogating “high-ranking al-Qaeda detainees.” Her sister, Samar, rose to the rank of captain in the U.S. Marines and served two tours in Iraq.

Knowing what we know about Mughniyeh and his relationship with Iran, might it be possible – maybe even likely -- that he dispatched these two Lebanese women to infiltrate U.S. intelligence agencies?

And now for speculation in the realm of spy novels: Maybe so little has been heard about the two sisters because some enterprising intelligence service was busy in recent years following Nadia and Samar’s information “up the food chain,” eventually to the headrest of a Mitsubishi Pajero car on a residential street in the upper-class Damascus neighborhood of Kafar Soussa.

Nah, it sounds like fiction.

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Israeli Nuclear Moles in the U.S.? Sounds Hot? It’s Not

A headline ran in Ha’aretz on Sunday: “FBI Translator Says Israel Planted Nuclear ‘Moles’ in U.S.” The paper’s reporter pulled a couple of lines from a story in the Sunday Times of London and voila a major story. Not only is the story an old one, but 99 percent of it deals with Turkish agents in the U.S. And it’s based on the claims of a contract translator, Ms. Sibel Edmonds, who worked a grand total of six months in the FBI. Behind the story, however, may be the “mega” story about American attempts to catch spies in Washington, including Israelis and American Jews.

Ms. Edmonds, a Turkish American, worked as a translator for the FBI after 9/11. Her task: transcribing and evaluating thousands of taped phone conversations, mostly involving senior Turkish diplomats in Washington and Turkish-Americans. She claims that in her six months at the FBI she witnessed misconduct, incompetence and the possible infiltration of her translation unit by Turkish intelligence. Since her firing in 2002, she has become a leader of government “whistle-blowers” and has written extensively about Turkish involvement in narco-terrorism, black-market nuclear activity and illegal contributions to American politicians. Edmonds also rails against the “industrial military complex” and “foreign interests,” such as the Saudis, working in Washington, undermining American national interests. Edmonds claims that the FBI and Justice Department have used draconian measures to silence her criticism. Along the way she has attracted an armada of civil liberty organizations, leftist activists, anti-Turkish Armenian groups, and chronic conspiracy theorists. Perhaps her biggest exposure was in a lengthy Vanity Fair article in August 2005, “An Inconvenient Patriot.”


Israel is barely mentioned in her charges about the corruption and spying in Washington. Until, that is, Sunday’s London Times article, “For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear Secrets.” Israel shows up only in the 15th paragraph in a sentence about un-translated FBI tapes dating back to 1997 related to “links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and U.S. targets.” Two paragraphs later the Times continued, “Turks and Israelis had planted ‘moles’ in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology.”

That was enough for Ha’aretz to produce its sensationalist headline.

More Questions than Answers

In the Vanity Fair article, Edmonds described the Washington FBI office where she monitored Turkish conversations along with two other Turkish speakers: “The translation department was housed in a huge, L-shaped room in the F.B.I.’s Washington field office. Some 200 to 300 translators sat in this vast, open space, listening with headphones to digitally recorded wiretaps.”

Some important questions come to mind:

• This was not the National Security Agency or CIA listening in to foreign conversations, this was the FBI’s domestic counter-intelligence office in Washington and other American cities. The investigation into the activities of AIPAC and other American Jewish organizations reportedly began in the late 1990s, even before 9/11 and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklyn came on the scene. What was the FBI looking for?
  
  
  
• Presumably, a large number of wiretap translators were recruited to listen for Arabic-speaking terrorists. Is this how Nada Nadim Prouty, an illegal immigrant with possible Hizbullah ties, found her way into the FBI? In a case of déjà vu, the Vanity Fair article – written in the summer of 2005 – reports that the daughter of a Pakistani general and former military attaché in Washington received a job with top-secret clearance to monitor Pakistani calls in the FBI translation office, despite warnings from a counter-intelligence officer . “FBI director Robert Mueller had promised Congress that the bureau would hire lots of new Middle Eastern linguists, and normal procedures had been short-circuited as a result,” VF reported.



• U.S. intelligence agencies have been searching for imaginary Israeli moles for years, reportedly believing that Jonathan Pollard had an accomplice more than two decades ago. In May 1997, sources leaked to the Washington Post a report that the National Security Agency monitored a conversation between Israeli officials about going to an American official “Mega” to secure a copy of a letter from Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Yasser Arafat. Did they find their mole? The conversation took place months before I arrived at the Israeli Embassy as DCM, but it was clear to me then that Mr. Mega was nothing more than a nickname for an American official authorized to liaise with the government of Israel. The Mega incident as well as Edmonds’ testimony of wiretaps of the Turkish Embassy should be a warning for all garrulous diplomats everywhere.



• Lastly, Edmonds never worked on the Israel/Hebrew desk. The introduction of Israel into the London Times’ story about Edmonds suggests that the anti-Israel, anti-Neo-Con conspiracy theorists may be joining with Edmonds’ supporters. In her recent interviews about the Turkish lobby, Edmonds parrots the charges leveled by Professors Mearsheimer and Walt against the “Israel Lobby.” She even suggests that investigations into AIPAC and the American-Turkish equivalence are linked.

As Washington get closer to the American elections and President Bush’s three months of the interregnum, there’s a scurrying of activity to secure presidential pardons for federal prisoners. The new/old reports and leaks about Israeli spying will increase as efforts are made to secure the release of Jonathan Pollard. It’s important to recognize the leaks for what they are and from whom they come.

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Did Anyone See that the Suspected CIA Mole's "Sister-in-Law" Was a U.S. Military Officer?

It seems that the arrested FBI/CIA agent Nada Nadim Prouty (pictured) only interests the press in the Detroit area. They reported this week that her two Lebanese sisters and roommate were also involved in citizenship frauds. Her roommate, Samar Khalil Nabbou Spinelli, was also in effect Prouty's sister-in-law. [The two woman married two brothers in their sham marriages.]

But wait, it gets better -- or worse as the case may be. Samar Khalil Nabbou Spinelli is a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and served two tours in Iraq, according to the Freep. Was her vow of semper fidelis actually a spy's efforts to stamp out the infidels?

One sister is sitting in jail already, and she and her fugitive husband were apparently Hizbullah fundraisers. The reporters haven't yet disclosed what the other sister, Dr. Rula Nadim El Aouar, did for a living. Let's just hope that her doctorate was not in nuclear physics, chemistry or immunology.

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Update on Nada Nadim Prouty

The suspected FBI/CIA mole was released yesterday by the U.S. District judge on a $10,000 unsecured bond.

Make sure to wave to her if you see her at the airport or the border crossing to Canada or Mexico. Who doubts she'll follow her brother-in-law who fled the country when the Feds started to close in? She probably has no interest in joining her sister in prison.

But where's the evidence that she worked for Hizbullah? I was asked today. Wait. Watch. U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, has already called for Congressional hearings.

The Detroit Free Press reported today, "In 2002, Prouty's sister and Chahine attended a fund-raiser in Lebanon that featured speeches by Chahine and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizbullah." The New York Post reports that Chanine spoke as the representative of "a worldwide group of fund-raisers."

The Freep also presents a chronology of Nadime's activities.

Meanwhile, the Feds are probably scurrying, assuming that agents, operations and methods have been compromised.

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Did Hizbullah Infiltrate the FBI and CIA?

Nada Nadim Prouty entered the U.S. from Lebanon in 1989. Her marriage was a fraud as was her subsequent application for U.S. citizenship. But that didn't stop her from getting jobs at the FBI and CIA. She was arrested this week for illegally accessing files in the FBI about Hizbullah investigations.

One of those investigations could have been about her brother-in-law, Talal Chahine, the owner of a string of Middle East restaurants in the Detroit area. He fled the country as the Feds started closing in on the $20 million he apparently sent to Hizbullah. Chanine's wife, Elfat El Aouar -- the spy's sister -- didn't or couldn't flee in time, and she was sentenced in May to 18 months in prison for tax evasion.

The Chanine's are a lovely family. Khalil Talal Chahine, the restraurantor's son, was convicted in May 2005 for the murder of a young man in Dearborn, Michigan. He's serving a 20-30 year sentence.

Read the U.S. Attorney's Charges against Nada Nadim Prouty.

Read the New York Times account. Many readers probably missed it because of the "parve" headline: C.I.A. Officer Pleads Guilty to Illegal Searches

And while we're talking about Dearborn, Houssein Zorkot, the 26-year old Hizbullah supporter who was arrested in September carrying a loaded AK-47 rifle in a Dearborn Park, came before a judge last week and had his competency examination postponed until December 14. When he was arrested he was wearing black face paint and dark clothing.

Come to think of it, would any jihadi suicide fighter pass an American court's competency exam?

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