Federal prosecutors have charged a former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist with collaborating with Iran's Revolutionary Guard forces to spy on her former American colleagues.

Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, defected to Iran in 2013, and brought with her information about U.S. spy programs and the identities of people who took part in them.

A 27-page indictment – along with an online trail of writings by Witt that grow increasingly critical of the U.S. military – reveal how she went from an Air Force specialist and Middle East scholar and consultant to someone who defected to Iran and began bashing the U.S. military.

She is charged with conspiring to deliver as well as delivering national defense information to representatives of the Iranian government, a long-time adversary of Washington.

This 2013 photo released by the Department of Justice shows Monica Elfriede Witt. The Justice Department on Wednesday announced an indictment against Monica Elfriede Witt, who defected to Iran in 2013 and is currently at-large. (Department of Justice via AP)

According to an article published by the International Quran News Agency that quotes her, Witt underwent a transformation while serving in Iraq. It was there that she began studying the Koran, and ultimately started trashing the U.S. military and society in online posts.

'I was a Christian, though I was not a religious person and never went to church… during my mission in Iraq, I decided to learn more about the people's beliefs and religion,' she said. 'I believed it would help me to better confront the enemy. I got a copy of the Quran and started reading it,' she is quoted as saying.

'Becoming Muslim and wearing Hijab used to be inconceivable for me, but the more I read the Quran, the stronger would be my resolve to embrace Islam,' she wrote, referencing headwear used by women in Iran.'

Witt spent years serving as a U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist

According to the article, Witt 'referred to the extensive propaganda against Iran and Islam in the US, saying that the American people are under the influence of the propaganda and that her relatives and friends were not happy with her becoming Muslim.'

According to the piece, 'Monica Witt also said that despite all the anti-Islam propaganda and Islamophobia, there is a growing trend of conversion to Islam and Shi’ism in the world.'

In an article published by Iranian PressTV, Witt complained of sexual harassment in the U.S. military.

'The majority of men simply do not take the idea of harassment seriously. They make comments about a woman’s appearance, or make generalized sexual remarks openly at work. Often times, they do not view these comments as inappropriate," she wrote.

'The boy’s club atmosphere is reinforced with a false belief that men are allowed to act inappropriately and that the command is condoning their behavior,' she wrote, according to the 2012 article, which both summarized and quoted from an article.

She penned a 2012 article in International Affairs Review at George Washington University, where she did graduate work, arguing that Tajikistan would not yield to U.S. pressure and cut ties to Iran over nuclear pressure from Washington.

She called it 'too large of a burden,' and noted longstanding ties.

An FBI Wanted poster contains images of Witt wearing a hijab as well as in military uniform

Meanwhile, her communications with an individual spelled out in the indictment reveal her desire to flee the U.S. and get asylum in Iran, Russia, or another country.

Along with four 'cyber coconspirators' in Iran, she sought to deploy malware and spearfishing campaigns 'that would provide them covert access to the targets' computers and networks,' according to prosecutors.

Both Witt and her four indicted coconspirators remain at large.

In one brash attempt to unearth U.S. government information, between January and May 2015, the conspirators used fake and impostor accounts in an attempt 'to trick their targets into clicking links or opening files that would allow the conspirators to deploy malware on the target's computer,' according to the indictment.

'In one such instance, the Cyber Conspirators created a Facebook account that purported to belong to a USIC employee and former colleague of Witt, and which utilized legitimate information and photos from the USIC employee's actual Facebook account,' according to the government.

The ploy worked. The fabricated account 'caused several of Witt's former colleagues to accept 'friend' requests' unwittingly.

This 2012 photo released by the Department of Justice shows Monica Elfriede Witt. The Justice Department on Wednesday announced an indictment against Monica Elfriede Witt, who defected to Iran in 2013 and is currently at-large. (Department of Justice via AP)

WANTED: An FBI 'missing person' notice says she was last believed to be in either Afghanistan or Tajikistan in July 2013, where she was working as an English teacher

According to her indictment, in 2012 she was warned she was a possible 'target for recruitment' by Iranian intelligence. She traveled to Iran to attend the New Horizon Organization's

She worked as an assistant on an anti-American film an appeared in videos criticizing the U.S. government.

The indictment cites communications between Witt and 'Individual A,' who at one point congratulated the Secretary of Defense, saying Witt was 'well trained.'

Witt responded she was trying to 'put the training I received to good use instead of evil,' adding a smiley face emoji.

Witt also wrote 'If all else fails, I may just go public with a program and do like Snowden,' in reference to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

In June 2013, she wrote that she had gone to the Iranian embassy in Kabul and 'told all,' according to the indictment.

But amid some snags, she wrote: 'I just hope I have better luck with Russia at this point. I am starting to get frustrated at the Iranian level of suspicion.' She later wrote: 'I think I can slip into Russia if they help me quietly and then I can contact wikileaks from there without disclosing my location.'

In the weeks before she defected, she conducted searches on Facebook for names of former counterintelligence officials, and continued doing so after she defected in August 2013.

An FBI 'missing person' notice released Wednesday says she was last believed to be in either Afghanistan or Tajikistan in July 2013, where she was working as an English teacher.

The indictment says the four Iranians were acting on behalf of the government-linked Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

'It is a sad day for American when one of its citizens betrays our country,' said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the head of the Justice Department's national security division.

The timing of her activity, 2013 and 2014, appears to indicate she conducted her spying while secret talks were underway for what became the Iran nuclear deal, which was reached in 2014 under the Obama administration.

Her actions were a 'violation of the law, her solemn oath to protect and defend our country, and the bounds of human decency,' he said.

Jay Tabb, the FBI's top national security official, said the FBI had warned Witt before her defection that she was a vulnerable target for recruitment by Iranian intelligence but that Witt had ignored those warnings.

'Monica Witt is charged with revealing to the Iranian regime a highly classified intelligence program and the identity of a U.S. Intelligence Officer, all in violation of the law, her solemn oath to protect and defend our country, and the bounds of human decency,' said Demers in a statement sent out by the Justice Department.

'Four Iranian cyber hackers are also charged with various computer crimes targeting members of the U.S. intelligence community who were Ms. Witt's former colleagues.

He added: 'This case underscores the dangers to our intelligence professionals and the lengths our adversaries will go to identify them, expose them, target them, and, in a few rare cases, ultimately turn them against the nation they swore to protect. When our intelligence professionals are targeted or betrayed, the National Security Division will relentlessly pursue justice against the wrong-doers.'

An online Iraq Veterans Against the War page features a Monica Witt who says she worked with Air Force Office of Special Investigations. It says she provided support in Thumrait, Oman, and Irbil, Iraq.

'I served in the Air Force for 10 years and participated in both the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. After viewing so much corruption and the damage we were doing both to Iraq/Afghanistan and to the perception of the U.S., I decided I needed to do as much as I could to help rectify the situation,' according to the page.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that his agency is imposing sanctions on New Horizon, an anti-zionist organization that hosted Witt at a conference.

'New Horizon hosts international conferences that have provided Iranian intelligence officers a platform to recruit and collect damaging information from attendees, while propagating anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial,' said Mnuchin. 'We are also sanctioning an Iran-based company that has attempted to install malware to compromise the computers of U.S. personnel.'

According to an English-language version of the group's web page, 'The conferences' topics are as following: World and regional matters, Geopolitics (In both Middle East and Eurasia) , Muslims in Europe, Islamophobia, Iranophobia, Discriminations, US State hostility towards Afro-Americans, Zionist Lobby, 911, Israeli-Western decision makers centers (political, military, economic & cultural ones), US domestic & Foreign Policy, South-South cooperation etc.'