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Lebanese-American Restaurateur Says Post-9/11 Zeal Ruined Him
Nearly eight years after fleeing the U.S. with tax evasion and other federal charges hanging over his head, former metro Detroit restaurateur Talal Chahine speaks wistfully of some day returning to America.
“I miss my home,” Chahine said in a recent, wide-ranging phone interview with the Free Press from Beirut, Lebanon. “I miss my friends. I spend 35 years there. From (the age of) 15 to 50, all I knew as home was the United States. God knows I never compromised my loyalty at any point of time.”
Chahine — speaking out publicly for the first time since 2006 — said he was the victim of a post-Sept. 11, 2001, atmosphere that led to overzealous targeting of Arab Americans and Muslims in metro Detroit.
The 58-year-old fugitive said he was on the verge of making his Dearborn-based La Shish restaurants a national brand that would have brought Middle Eastern cuisine to the masses.
Then, he said, prosecutors destroyed his dreams by releasing a photo of him sitting next to an Islamic cleric in Lebanon who founded a charity they linked to terrorism. Chahine maintains that the Muslim charity, which he gave money to, was authorized by U.S. officials to operate here.
For the first time, Chahine offered explanations for some of the charges against him, saying that any bookkeeping discrepancies he had were to help employees who needed health care for family members. He also claims that a hostile relative, who was a former employee, worked with the FBI to take him down in the name of fighting terror.
“I never thought this would happen in a nation I loved,” Chahine said. “I would love to come back … but (prosecutors) are interested in a pound of meat, the destruction of everything I worked for. It’s not sufficient they destroyed your multimillion-dollar business, they ruined you financially and everything you worked for. They still want you in jail.”
The FBI, which investigated Chahine for years, declined to comment on his remarks.
The former Dearborn resident was indicted by federal prosecutors on three charges: income tax evasion, extortion and assisting Nada Prouty, his sister-in-law and a former CIA agent accused by the FBI of stealing sensitive intelligence related to Hizballah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.
“He has been wanted since 2005 when he fled the United States,” said Gina Balaya, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.
Fleeing to his native Lebanon, Chahine left behind a trail of problems with the law and a restaurant business that had once employed about 800 workers and grossed $30 million a year, making La Shish a well-known place in southeastern Michigan. That restaurant empire collapsed after the U.S. Attorney’s Office released a photo of him with Sayed Mohammad Fadlallah, the late Shia cleric from Lebanon who is revered by many Lebanese Americans in Dearborn, but was on a terrorist list of the U.S. government.
Chahine was with Fadlallah at a fund-raising dinner in 2002 for Al-Mabarrat, a Lebanese charity founded by Fadlallah. In court documents, prosecutors sought to link Fadlallah — and, by extension, Chahine — to Hizballah. Metro Detroit Muslim leaders say that Fadlallah actually was not a part of Hizballah and was critical of the group. And Chahine noted that Al-Mabarrat was allowed to freely operate in the U.S.
The U.S. “approved and licensed them … so we assumed they’re not associated with any terrorist activity,” Chahine said. Muslims have a “legal and ethnical obligation to support charities,” he said.
Given that Al-Mabarrat was allowed to operate, he said, linking him to terrorism through the charity was “really entrapment.”
Al-Mabarrat’s office in Dearborn was raided in 2007, but no charges were The 9/11 terror attacks gave law enforcement “the political cover” to target Arab Americans and Muslims, Chahine said. “In the name of fighting terrorism, everything goes.”
While the FBI did not comment on Chahine’s remarks, its officials have said repeatedly that they don’t target people based on their ethnicity or religion.
Family problems
Chahine admits he sat next to Fadlallah at the 2002 fund-raiser. But he says the cleric, who died in 2010, was not a terrorist.
“I mean, who in his right mind post-9/11, would be sitting next to this gentleman, God rest his soul, if he had anything to hide?”
Chahine also was accused of helping his wife’s sister, Prouty, a former Dearborn resident who worked for the FBI and CIA before being forced out amid accusations that she accessed sensitive security information from a FBI computer.
Prouty had her citizenship removed, but was spared deportation after U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn and the CIA both praised her work. She also was featured in a “60 Minutes” piece that raised questions about the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecution.
Chahine defended her as well: “How can you destroy someone who did so much for your nation?”
Chahine maintains that a relative was the informant who helped the FBI investigate Chahine’s business practices. Chahine said the relative was not authorized to work in the U.S. legally and so was suspectible to pressure from federal authorities to inform on his business.
Prosecutors claimed Chahine kept a double set of books in order to pay lower taxes, skimming about $20 million; federal agents raided his home and business in 2005. Later, they released photos of him sitting to the Muslim cleric, which Chahine said led to a 50% drop in business.
Chahine maintains his business was legitimate. He paid employees by check, he said, unlike many other restaurants that pay cash to avoid detection for possible violations of the law.
Chahine tried to sell the La Shish chain, saying he had two solid offers of about $40 million each, but law enforcement officials would not approve the sale because of his legal troubles. Two years ago, a restaurant named La Shish opened in Chahine’s original location in Dearborn, but the owner is not connected to Chahine or his chain.
The raids on Chahine’s business came during the fifth day of his son’s murder trial. Khalil Chahine of Plymouth Township would later be found guilty in the shooting death of a 20-year-old Warren man. The younger Chahine is currently serving 22-32 years in prison, but his father still maintains his son’s innocence.
“I once had the utmost faith in our legal system,” Talal Chahine said. “I thought it was fair. That belief was shattered.”
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office did not comment, but has said previously that witnesses clearly identified Khalil Chahine as the shooter.
Life in Lebanon
To this day, Talal Chahine regrets what La Shish might have been.
Authorities “destroyed what could have been a billion-dollar chain,” he said. “We were ready to go nationwide. We had done all the franchise requirements in all the states.
“It’s just a horrible injustice.”
But for now, Chahine is focusing on his life in Lebanon, where he lives with his six children and Elfat El Aouar, his wife and former La Shish employee, who served 18 months in prison for tax evasion.
He hopes to open a restaurant within the next five months with a “similar menu to La Shish, but with some modifications.”
The only problem is that Lebanon lacks the business-friendly climate of Michigan and the U.S., he said.
“It’s ridiculous the amount of red tape and complications that exist in the system for you to create a business” in Lebanon, he said. “It’s not as easy and straightforward as it is in the states.”
And while Chahine is upset at how he was treated by the legal system in the U.S., he says: “I miss the United States cops because they respect the rule of law.” In Lebanon, local police, he said, have “total disregard” for enforcing the law.
Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press