As the owner of the most popular chain of Middle East restaurants in southeastern Michigan, Talal Chahine sits atop a food empire that employs hundreds and serves thousands every week.

But the 51-year-old Dearborn Heights owner of La Shish – facing government claims he evaded taxes and met with terrorists – says that success could collapse under the weight of allegations he believes unfairly target him.

In an exclusive interview by telephone from his home in Beirut, Chahine said Friday that despite the allegations he plans to return to metro Detroit next month.

The Justice Department has issued an arrest warrant for him on four counts of tax evasion and has linked him with Hizballah, a group based in Lebanon that the U.S. government says is a terrorist organization.

“I’m very eager to go back, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t have concerns,” he said. He added, jokingly: “Maybe they want to send me to Guantanamo Bay right now. Maybe they got some vacancies over there.”

The accusations are leveled at a man who rose rapidly after arriving in the United States at the age of 15, from a gas station attendant to a Ford engineer to a successful restaurateur.

Now, he faces legal action and business trouble.

In blunt language, Chahine said that prosecutors stand to ruin an operation that employs more than 600 people.

“If things are not reversed almost immediately, we’d have to lay off a lot of innocent, hard-working, honorable people,” Chahine said. “Their livelihoods would be devastated.”

At the La Shish franchise in Orchard Lake, business dropped by half in the last week, manager Mohammmed Cheaib said.

Cheaib’s restaurant is independently operated with no financial ties to La Shish Inc. or Chahine. Cheaib said he paid a fee for the La Shish name because of its reputation for fresh food and good service.

On Saturday, he said that name now is hurting him because customers are worried about the terrorism allegations.

Chahine and his wife, Elfat El Aouar, are accused of scheming to cheat the U.S. government of millions of dollars in taxes, according to the indictment unsealed this month.

Prosecutors say the two kept a double set of computerized books and records – one real and one fake – in order to conceal more than $20 million received by the restaurants.

Some of the money, the government alleged, was moved to Lebanon.

El Aouar, the company’s financial manager, has been arrested and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Speaking to the Free Press, Chahine said he is in Lebanon to track down a killer.

He said his 23-year-old son, Khalil Chahine, was wrongly convicted of fatally shooting Paul Hallis, 20, of Redford Township two years ago, and the killer is in Lebanon – his own son-in-law, Ali Abbas El-Ozeir.

“I’m trying to work the system here to secure his return to the U.S. so he can set the record straight,” Chahine said.

Wayne County prosecutors have remained firm that Khalil Chahine was the gunman, however. He was sentenced a year ago to up to 30 years in prison. And they say they’ve never been contacted by Talal Chahine about El-Ozeir.

“There were eyewitnesses that unequivocally identified Mr. Chahine as the shooter,” said Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, referring to Khalil Chahine.

As for the tax charges, Talal Chahine said any irregularities will be addressed.

“I can assure you, without exaggeration, we are more compliant than at least 99% of the organizations in our industry,” he said.

Then there are the accusations linking Chahine with Hizballah. According to federal prosecutors, Chahine attended a fund-raiser in Lebanon in August 2002, at which he and Hizballah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, were the keynote speakers.

On Friday, Chahine acknowledged he spoke at the fund-raiser, his topic being the importance of taking care of poor and disabled people and orphans.

But he said the event was to raise money for Al-Mabarrat, a Lebanese charity Chahine said is licensed by the U.S. government. Its U.S. arm, based in Dearborn, is listed as an approved nonprofit, according to GuideStar.org, which tracks nonprofits.

“This suspect’s organization is approved, licensed, sanctioned, given tax-exempt status in the United States,” Chahine said. “Otherwise, we would have never supported them.”

A Shi’ite Muslim, Fadlallah is considered by many to be Hizballah’s spiritual leader, and he is on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist supporters. But some people in metro Detroit’s Lebanese-American and Shi’ite Muslim communities say he is a man who preaches cooperation with other religions.

“This is foolish” to say Fadlallah is with Hizballah, said Imam Mohammad Elahi, head of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, who has met with Fadlallah. “He’s a religious leader. … He is very open.”

Elahi and other Muslims and Arab Americans in metro Detroit said this week that they’re concerned that prosecutors have been tacking on terrorism allegations after charging Arab defendants with crimes.

But U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy denied any connection between the two, saying Friday: “We go where the evidence takes us. We don’t have any sort of agenda.” He declined to speak specifically about the case against Chahine.

Chahine, however, called the accusations unethical, saying his patriotism is being unfairly impugned.

They have “tainted my loyalty, my commitment, my love, my allegiance, to my country, America,” he said. “It just really tears my heart apart.”

“I’m very eager to go back, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t have concerns.”Talal Chahine, La Shish owner.

– Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or nwarikoo@freepress.com.

According to federal prosecutors, the owner of the La Shish chain of restaurants has ties to top officials of a terrorist organization.

In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, the U.S. Attorney’s Office maintains that Talal Chahine has “connections at the highest levels of … Hizballah,” a group based in Lebanon that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

Chahine’s attorney, Robert Forrest, said that Chahine has never supported terrorism.

“He had nothing to do with people who are involved with that sort of activity,” Forrest said Monday.

The government’s claims were detailed in documents filed Friday to argue that Chahine’s wife, Elfat El Aouar, should not be released from jail because she is a flight risk. El Aouar, La Shish’s financial manager, and Chahine, 51, were charged last week with four counts of tax evasion related to their restaurant chain.

El Aouar, 39, was arrested at her Plymouth home Thursday and jailed. She was released Friday on a $100,000 unsecured bond on conditions that included that she surrender her passports and any airplane tickets, and not fly on a plane, said Stephen Moore, an official with the criminal investigative division of the Internal Revenue Office in Detroit.

According to prosecutors, El Aouar told an FBI agent in September that she was fully aware of all of Chahine’s activities.

In the court filing, the government says that in August 2002, El Aouar and Chahine attended a fund-raiser in Lebanon, at which Chahine and Hizballah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, were the keynote speakers.

Chahine and Fadlallah conferred privately, the government says. The government also says that Chahine sponsored orphans that may have been related to Hizballah activity and posed for photos in and around a Hizballah outpost in Lebanon.

Hizballah was suspected of some of the highest-profile terror attacks on U.S. interests in the 1980s, including suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and kidnappings of Americans in Lebanon in the ’80s.

Chahine is currently in Lebanon, according to prosecutors. Forrest said he couldn’t comment on Chahine’s whereabouts.

Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or nwarikoo@freepress.com.

(SIDEBAR)

KEY LEGAL DATES FOR THE CHAHINE FAMILY

April 19, 2005:

Federal agents raid Talal Chahine’s homes and La Shish headquarters in Dearborn. They get computers and financial records, according to search warrant records.

May 13, 2005:

Khalil Chahine, 23, son of Talal Chahine, is sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison for the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend’s fiance, Paul Hallis.

Sept. 29, 2005:

Federal agents again raid Talal Chahine’s homes.

May 18, 2006:

Talal Chahine’s wife, Elfat El Aouar, is arrested at her home. She and her husband are each charged with four counts of tax evasion. She pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court. A warrant was issued for Chahine, who is in Lebanon, prosecutors say.

May 19, 2006:

El Aouar is released on bond.

SOURCE: Free Press research

The operators of the La Shish chain of restaurants are accused of scheming to cheat the U.S. government of millions of dollars by skimming money to avoid paying taxes, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit has charged La Shish’s owner, Talal Chahine, and his wife, Elfat El Aouar, with four counts of tax evasion.

El Aouar, the company’s financial manager, was arrested at her Plymouth home Thursday morning.

She later pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Detroit while Chahine remains in his native country, Lebanon, with a warrant out for his arrest.

According to prosecutors, Chahine, 51, of Dearborn Heights and El Aouar, 39, of Plymouth operated a double set of computerized books and records – one real and one fake – to deceive the IRS.

They concealed more than $16 million in cash received by the restaurants, converted it into cashier’s checks and larger bills, and then took it to Lebanon, the indictment alleges.

“The transferring of millions of dollars in cash from the United States to the Middle East in the attempt to evade taxes will not be tolerated,” said Stephen Murphy, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

But Chahine’s attorney, Robert Forrest, said: “I think the government has acted prematurely. We were working to resolve the matter with them.”

Wearing blue jeans and a headscarf, El Aouar appeared in court Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Scheer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell suggested that she was a flight risk and asked the court to order her to hand over the passports for her and her children and any plane tickets. No bond was set during her appearance Thursday.

“She is a Lebanese citizen and can flee there,” Chadwell said. The court set a hearing today for El Aouar, who remains in the Wayne County Jail.

After the hearing Thursday, her attorney James Thomas said: “These are just allegations.”

Each of the four counts carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, upon conviction.

Local prosecutors can’t arrest Chahine because he is in Lebanon and the United States and Lebanon don’t have an extradition agreement, Chadwell said.

His attorney, Forrest, said he wouldn’t comment on Chahine’s whereabouts.

La Shish, headquartered in Dearborn, has 14 locations across southeastern Michigan and has become one of the most popular Middle Eastern restaurants in the region.

According to the indictment, Chahine, with help from El Aouar, understated his income to the IRS by about $4.1 million in 2000, $4.6 million in 2001, $4.7 million in 2002, and $1.6 million in 2003.

In total, they cheated the government out of about $5.5 million over the four years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The investigation was conducted by FBI and IRS agents. In September, federal agents raided Chahine’s homes, netting computers, hard drives, cell phones, and computer discs, according to federal search warrant records.

Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or nwarikoo@freepress.com.

(SIDEBAR)

KEY DATES IN CASE

April 19, 2005

Federal agents raid the homes of Talal Chahine in Plymouth Township and Dearborn Heights, and at La Shish’s headquarters in Dearborn. They get computers and financial records, according to search warrant records.

Sept. 29, 2005

Federal agents again raid the homes of Talal Chahine in Plymouth and Dearborn Heights.

May 13, 2006

Khalil Chahine, 23, son of Talal Chahine, is sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison for the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend’s fiance, Paul Hallis.

May 18, 2006

Chahine’s wife, Elfat El Aouar, is arrested at her home in Plymouth. She and Talal Chahine are each charged with four counts of tax evasion in an indictment that is unsealed. She pleads not guilty in U.S. District Court. A warrant is issued for Chahine, who is in Lebanon, prosecutors say.

SOURCE: Free Press research

– Niraj Warikoo

The owner of the La Shish chain of restaurants defended himself Tuesday against government accusations that he has ties to a terrorist organization, saying in an e-mailed statement from his company’s public relations firm that “these reports are absolutely false and unduly defame me, my company and employees.”

Federal prosecutors maintain that Talal Chahine, 51, of Dearborn Heights has “connections at the highest levels of … Hizballah.” Chahine and his wife, Elfat El Aouar, 39, of Plymouth, are charged in a tax-evasion scheme, accused of skimming more than $20 million from the La Shish restaurants. Authorities say some money was funneled to Lebanon.

In the court documents, the government says that Chahine and El Aouar attended a fund-raiser in 2002 in Lebanon, at which Chahine and Hizballah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, were the keynote speakers.

The two conferred privately, the government says. The government also says that Chahine sponsored orphans that may have been related to Hizballah activity and posed for photos at a Hizballah outpost in Lebanon.

But in a statement released by a public relations firm representing La Shish Inc., Chahine said that “untrue allegations have been made which wrongly link me with a particular organization.”

In his statement, he said that “the event reported by the government as being ‘suspicious’ involved a 2002 fund-raiser at which I spoke on the duty of Muslims everywhere to perform charitable acts and live in peace with their neighbors.”

He also said that “it is quite disheartening that our philanthropic efforts aimed at peace and charity for all are being characterized as otherwise.”

Friends and others who know Chahine also criticized the government’s efforts to link Chahine with Hizballah. They pointed out Tuesday that Chahine has not been charged with any terrorism crime.

On Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed court documents seeking to deny the release of El Aouar, who was arrested last week.

Chahine is in Lebanon, prosecutors say, and El Aouar was released Friday on bond.

The statement further said:

“We appreciate the long-standing and continued support of our patrons and friends in the metropolitan Detroit community.”

“Untrue allegations have been made which wrongly link me with a particular organization.”Talal Chahine, La Shish Inc. owner, responding to allegations he supported Hizballah. The message came from a public relations firm; Chahine is said to be in Lebanon.

– Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or nwarikoo@freepress.com.