Fake U.S. citizen worked on major terror cases, lawyer says

Nada Prouty, the Lebanese immigrant who parlayed a sham marriage into U.S. citizenship and key jobs at the FBI and CIA, worked on several counter-terrorism investigations, including the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, her lawyer said in court documents Thursday."Nada Nadim Prouty accepts full responsibility for her actions and is deeply sorry for her misconduct," attorney Thomas Cranmer of Troy wrote in a 32-page sentencing memo filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, for her sentencing May 13. Thursday#39;s filing offered the first details of what the former Taylor resident did for the government."With her language skills and cultural background, Ms. Prouty made invaluable contributions working on highly sensitive and often dangerous counter-terrorism cases," Cranmer wrote, urging U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn to sentence her to probation rather than 6-12 months in prison as recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.Seventeen sailors were killed in the Oct. 12, 2000, suicide attack on the Navy guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Cole.Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell said he couldn#39;t comment on Cranmer#39;s filing.Prouty pleaded guilty in November to accessing a classified FBI computer system to find out whether she or her family members - including brother-in-law Talal Chahine, fugitive owner of the La Shish restaurant chain - were being investigated for terrorist activities and to obtain information about Hizballah investigations."At no time did she ever compromise or jeopardize the integrity of her case assignments through improper behavior or inappropriate conduct," Cranmer said, adding that CIA polygraph tests confirmed that Prouty did not pose a threat to national security.Besides the Cole investigation, Cranmer said Prouty, 38, of Vienna, Va., worked on the 2002 kidnapping of Brent Swan, a helicopter repairman who was kidnapped by separatists in Angola and released after his employer paid a ransom. She helped arrest one of the kidnappers and bring him to trial in the U.S., Cranmer said.She also helped investigate the 2002 assassination of U.S. AID diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan and helped link the slaying to Abu Musab al-Zarkqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.After joining the CIA in 2003, Cranmer said, she worked in Baghdad following the American invasion."Through the sixth month of her pregnancy, Ms. Prouty was in the streets of a city at war in order to protect the American forces fighting there," Cranmer wrote. "On a number of occasions, she was trapped out side the safety of the U.S. Green Zone and was fired on before she was exfiltrated to safety."Prouty resigned from the CIA last November before pleading guilty in Detroit. In pleading guilty, she surrendered her U.S. citizenship and agreed to be deported, though she likely will be allowed to stay in the U.S. because of the jobs she held at the FBI and CIA, authorities said.Although authorities said there was no evidence that Prouty was a Hizballah operative, the episode raised questions about how she cleared multiple federal background checks to acquire U.S. citizenship and land jobs at two of the nation#39;s most sensitive intelligence agencies without someone discovering that she had engaged in citizenship fraud.Since leaving the CIA, Cranmer said, Prouty, a Certified Public Accountant, remains unemployed and spends most of her time volunteering at church.She is married to Gordon Prouty, a State Department employee she met while assigned to Yemen.Prouty immigrated to the U.S. when she was 19, and hired a Downriver man to marry her so she could obtain permanent residency and get a break on tuition at Detroit College of Business, Cranmer said.In 1993, he said, she met and eventually married Andrew Alley, an American-born former Marine Corps Captain of Druze descent. They lived in Pennsylvania.In 1999, she decided to join the FBI. He remained behind in Pennsylvania and they eventually divorced, Cranmer said.Cranmer said she was one of the first FBI agents dispatched to Yemen after the Cole bombing. It was there that she met Gordon Prouty.In 2001, before she had completed her two-year probationary period with the FBI, Prouty served as acting legal attache in Islamabad, Pakistan, Cranmer said.Two of Prouty#39;s sisters also were charged with marriage fraud.Elfat El Aouar, 40, of Plymouth, who eventually married Chahine, pleaded guilty to citizenship fraud and was sentenced in February to 90 days in prison for citizenship fraud. She is serving an 18-month prison sentence for helping Chahine, 54, evade $6.9 million in federal income taxes from 2001 to 2005 on his Dearborn-based restaurant chain. He fled the country in September 2005 to avoid prosecution.Another sister, Dr. Rula Nadim El Aouar, 37, of Dearborn was charged with naturalization fraud for allegedly arranging a sham marriage. Negotiations are underway to enable her to avoid criminal charges, yet surrender her citizenship, authorities said.Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at ashenf@freepress.com