Avondale property developer Elie Douna sentenced over $14.7m scam

Elie Douna was sentenced at Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday on three charges of making a false document to obtain a financial advantage.

Douna and his twin brother Charbel owned LuxLiving Homes and obtained two parcels of land in Avondale on which they proposed to build developments of 92 and 21 townhouses.

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The first stage involved the construction of 19 townhouses, but for this they needed $14.7 million.

To secure this loan, they also needed home warranty insurance and to obtain this, Douna needed to show his business had $4.75 million.

In December 2020, Douna instructed an employee to transfer amounts of $10, $10, $200, $170 and $100 from a subsidiary account into the business' main account.

He then added zeroes to the sums on the statement, making it look like the business had millions in the bank.

As a result, Douna got the home warranty insurance he needed for the loan.

With the help of his co-offender, real estate agent Ben Feltham, he had nine false contracts of sale and receipts for homes drawn up to bolster his application for the loan.

At that stage, only 10 of the 19 prospective properties had sold.

"I've got 10 exchanged with Avondale and I'm going to make up the other nine, I just need some receipts," Douna told Feltham in one phone call intercepted by investigators.

Douna used the names of friends, family members and associates on the fake contracts - but these people did not know of the alleged fraud or had no intention to buy.

Douna never got the money he was after - police were clued in to the fraud and notified the lender before the loan was approved.

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In sentencing Douna, Magistrate Claire Girotto took into account he degree of planning and sophistication, with the frauds having taken place over two and a half months.

While Douna said he committed the offences only to expedite the loan process amid uncertainty within the building industry, Magistrate Girotto said: "I agree his motivation was probably somewhere between need and greed".

Co-offender Feltham was sentenced in May to a two-year community corrections order for three counts of making false documents to obtain financial advantage.

Magistrate Girotto said that while Feltham might have eventually benefited from his participation in the scam, it was Douna who stood to gain the most; he had also falsified more documents.

She accepted Douna was extremely remorseful for his actions, and noted there was a link between his impoverished upbringing and his fear of failure.

Douna had also contributed "in no small way" to the community, Magistrate Girotto said, having fed and housed homeless people, and established a charity with his brother.

She described him as "clearly a very decent human being".

But the need for punishment, accountability and deterrence loomed large, Magistrate Girotto said, and the only available sentence was imprisonment.

However, she ordered Douna serve this term in the community by way of a 14-month community corrections order.

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