A federal judge in Santa Ana Tuesday asked a fitness instructor who worked as an undercover FBI informant to go through his records to make sure the judge has all of the documents needed to decide on a class-action lawsuit alleging the government improperly spied on Muslims in Orange County.
The lawsuit filed in 2011 over the 2006 Operation Flex surveillance of local Muslims has been on hold for years due to the government’s national security claims. Former FBI informant Craig Monteilh, who masqueraded as a convert to Islam who joined the Islamic Center of Irvine, will return to court next Tuesday to tell U.S. District Judge David O. Carter if a review of his records matches what is already in the possession of the federal government.
“I’d like to have all of the notes you have in your possession,” Carter told Monteilh Tuesday. “And I’d like to know all of the notes the government has in its possession.”
The notes in question are reports Monteilh made to his FBI handlers throughout the operation.
Carter said he wants to avoid a “surprise” note resurfacing later that would interrupt the lawsuit’s progress again.
The case has been knocking around between the lower and appellate courts for roughly 15 years, even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court and now landing in Carter’s court.
Now-retired U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney dismissed the case in 2012 based on the government’s claim it could not defend itself without revealing state secrets.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Carney’s ruling in part and reversed it in part. That led to the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the appellate court ruling in 2022 and sent it back to the 9th Circuit, which ruled in December 2024 that the religious discrimination case could move forward without considering the privileged information and left it up to Carter to sort it out.
“I have stated I have notes because it sounds a lot better than I have a photographic memory,” Monteilh told Carter. He added the government has all of his notes from 2007.
Monteilh said he has a new computer and has been attempting to transfer notes from 2006-07 to a thumb drive.
“I haven’t found a credible place to do that and I’m not willing to leave them with anyone overnight,” Monteilh said.
“All I’m asking for is completeness” of the records, Carter said.
Monteilh said it would take him about a week to comb through his records, so Carter scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday.
“I don’t really want to go forward unless I have a complete record,” Carter said.
Monteilh has since recanted some of his earlier declarations in the case and is expected to be questioned about the equivocating.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys told Carter on Monday that the government recently turned over video of Monteilh wandering through mosques from 15 years ago that would indicate violations of privacy and the First Amendment.
Monteilh recently sent a letter to the attorneys on the case saying that he was relieved to have been freed from a non-disclosure agreement with the FBI.
“It feels so good not to have that NDA lurking over me,” Monteilh said.
In a recent letter, Monteilh said, “My handwritten notes and the audio and video recordings are only half of what plaintiffs have been seeking access to. The other half that’s much more informative and completes the surveillance is the (electronic communications) that the FBI possesses. The FBI and Craig Monteilh constantly communicated through email communications throughout Operation Flex.”
Monteilh said the email correspondence was “necessary for mass surveillance. Such as license plate numbers at large gatherings, identifying specific individuals and their associations, targeting the donation box to identify donors and how they donated (cash, check or prepaid cards), who was coming and going in the imam’s office, and other areas that I’ll give testimony to.”
Monteilh has claimed in the court papers that he worked as a “double agent” for the government and the plaintiffs.
“Craig Monteilh… is a legitimate double agent,” he said. “Not giving classified information to a foreign power, or an adversary of the United States, but giving it to an American civil rights organization. Revenge or not, it was legitimate. Although Craig Monteilh’s NDA did make his actions illegitimate (illegal).”
Monteilh claimed in a statement last year to the Department of Justice that he “created the idea of Operation Flex in May 2006. I pitched the idea of infiltrating mosques to four FBI agents at different times.”
He went on to claim he has a “history of creating operations dating back to 1983, at age 21.”
He also laid claim to the lawsuits against the government “so that I may obtain vital and admissible information,” and that he was motivated by the FBI reneging “on promises made to me that allowed me to be arrested and serve prison time after providing them with vital actionable intelligence and risking my life… I orchestrated the lawsuits as my revenge against the FBI. So my purpose was to expose Operation Flex and my participation and also to embarrass the corrupt FBI. And I’m damn proud of it.”
Monteilh said his cover was “exposed” by FBI agents when they outed him during criminal proceedings against Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, whose case was later dismissed by the government.
“So as a result I partnered with the (American Civil Liberties Union) and the Council on American Islamic Relations to protect myself from an enraged Islamic community knowing that I worked on behalf of the FBI infiltrating their mosques. The FBI was reckless and negligent,” Monteilh said.