Isabella Sabbouh: Primary school teacher pleads guilty after receiving almost $50k from ex-boyfriend’s fraud

A primary school teacher received nearly $50,000 from her ex-boyfriend, who had conned the federal government out of the money and was using it to maintain their deteriorating relationship.

Isabella Sabbouh leaves Downing Centre Local Court last week.

A primary school teacher has admitted receiving nearly $50,000 in tainted funds from her ex-boyfriend, who had conned the federal government out of the money and was using it to maintain their deteriorating relationship.

Isabella Sabbouh’s former partner, Salim Merheb, said the pair could “go halves” in his dodgy dealings, and called her a “c--t” in a message demanding that she not “say anything to anyone”.

Sabbouh, 24, fronted Downing Centre Local Court last week and pleaded guilty to charges of dealing with the proceeds and suspected proceeds of indictable crime.

Agreed facts state Sabbouh received $48,109.67 in bank deposits from Merheb between April and November 2021, when she was a lifeguard.

The total included 22 deposits worth a combined $14,280.07. Court documents state portions of these funds came from false claims, made by Merheb in other people’s names, for Commonwealth disaster recovery and COVID-19 payments.

Downing Centre Local Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

The remaining $33,829.60 came from 54 separate deposits “reasonably suspected of being proceeds of indictable crime”.

That money was the proceeds of Centrelink payments made to Merheb “in other people’s names”.

Police did not suggest Sabbouh was involved in actually making the fraudulent claims.

Agreed facts state she was in a relationship with Merheb between 2018 and October 2021.

Merheb’s offending started months before the end of their relationship with a co-offender, Selina Saab, working at Service NSW, where she had access to customers’ identification information.

Between July and November 2021, Saab provided Merheb with these details, which, the agreed facts state, allowed him to “make false claims for Commonwealth payments”.

Centrelink made deposits into eight different accounts under Merheb’s name between April 2021 and May 2022.

He made 33 fraudulent claims connected to the 2021 floods and COVID-19 pandemic under his own name, resulting in 45 deposits that totalled $43,800.

A further 123 deposits, worth a combined $126,942.42, were also made to Merheb’s accounts despite being connected to claims he had made under different names.

The agreed facts state the names were those of real people, whose details he received from Saab on Snapchat or “obtained elsewhere”.

Merheb was previously sentenced to three years and six months in jail, with a 22-month non-parole period, after pleading guilty in the NSW District Court to charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, dealing with proceeds of crime, and dealing in identification information with intent to commit an indictable offence.

A subsequent appeal was dismissed by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.

The agreed facts state that Saab is, meanwhile, “currently awaiting sentence in the NSW District Court for related offences”.

During a search of Sabbouh’s Punchbowl home on the day of her arrest in May 2023, she voluntarily handed her phone to police.

The device was later analysed, revealing messages in which Merheb said he had been given “licenses to do” flood-related claims.

“Don’t say anything to anyone c--t,” he told Sabbouh.

He later wrote “go halves”, to which Sabbouh replied “ok”.

Weeks later, Sabbouh sent Merheb a long message in which she told him she did not “give a f--k anymore” about their relationship.

“I was losing my mind for you every f--king day of my life running out of the house to come stalk you and see where you are,” she said.

“To come back to someone who doesn’t legit have a life.”

Agreed facts state Sabbouh continued by saying: “I want someone on my level … not fucien (sic) takes $10,000 from Centrelink and has nothing left.”

Days later, Sabbouh claimed Merheb was “trying to make me stay with money”.

He messaged her later in the day, saying: “You listen to what the fck (sic) I say when I say mute I tell u what to say and u listen.”

Sabbouh responded with: “Why would I want someone who literally steals money … From the world.”

The pair continued messaging until November 2021.

Sabbouh is set to be sentenced in the Downing Centre Local Court in December.