Adelaide Sisters Association founder Lena Allouche thanks community for rehabilitating her after $100,000 fraud case

Over 10 years, this woman went from defrauding nearly $100,000 from her employers, to a charity worker helping the needy. Now she’s revealed what put her life back on track.

At the lowest, most regrettable point in her life, Lena Allouche put money ahead of morality and embarked on a course of fraud that would eventually total almost $100,000.

In the decade since, her life has been completely transformed – and Ms Allouche says she owes that, and her suspended prison term, to the healing support of her community.

On Monday, the mother of three and founder of the Adelaide Sisters Association was spared a jail cell for her two-year crime, in part because of her commitment to charity work.

On Tuesday, she told The Advertiser that work was not only her way of atoning for what she had done, but also the truest expression of who she was and who she had become.

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

“The people that are around me, all the community organisations with whom we work, have supported and helped me throughout this … I was never shunned by them,” she said.

“The most important thing, for me, was learning the lesson that we are stronger through unity, stronger if we are together.

“That’s the rehabilitation process I’ve been through over the past seven to eight years … with my community behind me, I’ve become the person I am today.”

Ms Allouche, 38, pleaded guilty to 27 counts of fraud, admitting she siphoned $97,697.85 from two rental management businesses for whom she worked between 2014 and 2016.

The Adelaide Magistrates Court heard that money was spent supporting two side businesses she owned, and on flights for her family to Lebanon.

The court jailed Ms Allouche for two years and three months, but suspended that on condition of a two-year, $500 good behaviour bond.

It ruled her charity work was “suggestive of a change from demonstrated selfishness to demonstrated selflessness”, and showed she was unlikely to reoffend.

Ms Allouche is a founder of the Adelaide Sisters Association. Picture: Supplied

On Tuesday, Ms Allouche said she could not discuss details of her case due to the negotiations with prosecutors that preceded her guilty pleas.

“I had to make a decision for my family, and I made that decision,” she said.

“(Going through court) was very hard, it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life, but I did it because it was what was best for my family and my community.”

She said SA Police did not lay charges against her until 2021 – after the association was founded and its work had begun.

During its existence, she said, the association had moved from “toilet paper drives” and shopping runs for elderly people during the pandemic to fundraising initiatives.

The association has played a role in fundraising for the family of drowning victim Ahmad Alfarhan, as well as the peoples of Gaza, Palestine, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Those funds were distributed overseas by the humanitarian organisation Human Appeal Australia.

“(One event) was the first time in the history of SA’s Muslim associations where we all did one community event as a group, with the money going to the same area,” she said.

“During fundraising (after 2021), I was always open with people about my legal issues and raised it in our meetings with every charity organisation.”

Ms Allouche, second from left, with other members of the Adelaide Sisters Association charity group. Picture: Supplied

Ms Allouche said the unconditional community support she received throughout her prosecution was central to her rehabilitation.

“The love, respect, and feeling of support you get when you’re doing the right thing trumps any and every other feeling in life,” she said.

“I just wish that others who have been through what I have could feel that support in their lives … I truly believe so many people would change.”

She said she was committed to the association, her family and her community, as well as working hard to make up for her offending.

“The one thing I’ve learned from this situation is that money doesn’t matter – it’s a commodity that we need to live, and nothing more,” she said.

“If you are ever in a situation where you feel like, for whatever reason, you have to do something that you know is wrong, you should never do it.

“If you are going through a hard time, but your community supports you, then you change because you want to be better.”