Adelaide Sisters Association founder Lena Allouche receives suspended sentence after pleading guilty to $97,000 fraud

She stole almost $100,000 from two businesses to fuel her own lifestyle, but this charity worker’s transformation from “selfish to selfless” has greatly impacted her sentence.

Lena Allouche outside the Adelaide Magistrates Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

A mother-of-three who stole almost $100,000 from two employers over two years to fund her two side businesses and an international trip has been spared jail – in part because she has reinvented herself as a charity worker.

On Monday, Lena Allouche stood with her head bowed in the Adelaide Magistrates Court dock as she was ordered to serve a suspended sentence for 27 counts of fraud.

Magistrate Karim Soetratma said Allouche – one of the founders of the Adelaide Sisters Association – and the general public alike must be deterred from committing fraud.

However, he said her sentence should also reflect the massive and marked change in her life since 2016, when she had ceased her offending.

“The money taken was substantial, the offending was persistent, it took place over nearly two years in breach of two positions of trust you held at two different organisations,” he said.

“Your subsequent charity work is suggestive of a change, on your part, from demonstrated selfishness to demonstrated selflessness.

“It’s consistent with your counsel’s suggestion you are committed to atonement for your offending and significantly reduces the prospects of you reoffending.”

Allouche, 38, pleaded guilty to 27 counts of fraud committed between October 2014 and September 2016.

Between those times, she was employed as a rental property manager – first at Chehade Property Management, then at Trio Realty and Property Management.

Allouche admitted that she transferred rental payments owed to those businesses into bank accounts she controlled, totalling $97,697.85.

Lena Allouche pleaded guilty to 27 counts of fraud. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

That money was used to support two businesses she owned – a caterer and a cleaning service – and buy her entire family Qatar Airways tickets to Lebanon.

In sentencing on Monday, Mr Soetratma said Allouche had resigned from each company prior to the frauds being detected, and shut both of her businesses after being charged.

He rejected submissions, by her counsel, that neither Chehade and Trio “had been left out of pocket” given their losses had been covered by an indemnity fund.

“That is not a matter in mitigation … an indemnity fund just transfers losses that shouldn’t have occurred in the first place to another party, likely the taxpayer,” he said.

Mr Soetratma said Allouche’s referees had insisted her offending was “out of character”, but noted those people had only come to know her after the fraud ceased.

However, he said her work “bringing women of diverse backgrounds together in unity” via the Adelaide Sisters Association demonstrated her desire to change her life for the better.

He jailed Allouche for two years and three months, with a 10-month non-parole period, but suspended that term on condition of a two-year, $500 good behaviour bond.