Ex-fed agent fined for fake marriage, data search

A former FBI and CIA agent was fined Tuesday but won't be sent to prison or her native Lebanon for faking a marriage to gain U.S. citizenship and improperly searching an FBI database.

Nada Nadim Prouty, 38, "erred in judgment" when she lied to enter the U.S. in 1989 but has provided "exemplary service to the country" as a federal agent, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said.

The judge ordered Prouty to pay $975 in fines and fees and signed an order revoking her citizenship, but Prouty's attorney Thomas Cranmer said later she will not be deported.

Government officials have said they would not deport her because of her knowledge about matters of national security; the judge noted there was no evidence she was a spy.

Prouty began working for the FBI five years after emigrating and joined the CIA in 2003; she resigned as part of her guilty plea to conspiracy to defraud the U.S., unauthorized computer access and naturalization fraud.

"I accept full responsibility for my error in my judgment," Prouty told the judge Tuesday. "I admit I made a mistake. ... But I'm not or have never been disloyal to the United States in any way, shape or form."

As an FBI special agent, Prouty made unauthorized searches on a computer database for possible links between her relatives and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, authorities say.

The searches involved her sister, Elfat El Aouar, and brother-in-law, Talal Chahine.

Chahine is believed to have fled to Lebanon in 2005 to avoid federal tax charges. He is accused of skimming more than $20 million in cash and sending it to Lebanon.

Elfat El Aouar was sentenced a year ago to 18 months in prison for tax evasion and sentenced to 90 days in prison and stripped of her citizenship in February for citizenship fraud.