Illegal immigrant finds work as spook for the FBI and CIA

Background checks not all that

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 14th November 2007 02:57 GMT

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A former agent for the CIA and FBI admitted she illegally accessed government computers to obtain classified information about the radical Islamic group Hezbollah.

Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, also confessed that she fraudulently obtained US citizenship years before receiving a security clearance, according to a Justice Department press release. She pleaded guilty to one count each of criminal conspiracy, unauthorized computer access and naturalization fraud. She faces up to 16 years in prison and a fine of $600,000.

In documents filed in federal court in Detroit, Prouty acknowledged overstaying a student visa and then, in 1990, offering money to an unemployed American man to marry her. The couple never lived together. In 1994, she obtained American citizenship after filing false and forged documents.

In 1997, the FBI granted Prouty a security clearance after hiring her as a special agent and assigned her to the bureau's Washington field office. She left the FBI in June 2003 and went to work for the CIA "through a series of false representations and use of her fraudulently procured proof of US citizenship," the press release stated.

While at the FBI, Prouty conducted at least two illegal computer searches. One, in 2000, sought classified information the FBI had on her and two family members. The second, conducted the same month she left the FBI, sought information about Hezbollah, even though she wasn't assigned to work on cases about the Lebanese militant group.

Shortly before Prouty joined the CIA, her sister and brother-in-law attended a fund-raising event in Lebanon at which the keynote address was delivered by Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah. ®

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