In the wake of a Sydney Morning Herald investigation that revealed key parts of an ICAC investigation and a public inquiry last year, ICAC concluded on Wednesday that Ms Sharobeem had corruptly misappropriated nearly $800,000 of public funds from the Immigrant Womens Health Services and the Non-English Speaking Housing organisation. Eman Sharobeem receives her commendation in the Australian of the Year Award from then-NSW premier Mike Baird. She used the funds to finance her lavish lifestyle. Public hearings last year heard Ms Sharobeem had spent thousands of dollars on jewellery, Botox, liposuction for her son, a Mercedes for her husband, family holidays, a massage chair and gym memberships. She claimed extra salaries for her and her sons using fake names so as not to draw attention to them. She claimed expenses she was not entitled to, often cutting revealing details from receipts to hide the nature or location of a purchase. She doctored receipts. She faked enrolments in her courses to earn money from funding bodies. She charged garden renovations and pest control to the public purse. ICAC recommended the director of public prosecutions consider charging the former Australian of the Year finalist with a range of offences, including misconduct in public office, fraud, obtaining benefit by deception, publishing a false statement, using a false document and giving false or misleading evidence.

Should she be charged and found guilty of the fraud offences she faces up to 10 years jail. Loading Over eight torrid days in the witness box last year, Ms Sharobeem, the former head of the IWHS and NESH, denied wrongdoing, saying she had given her life to helping the underprivileged. But ICAC found Ms Sharobeem’s evidence was often inconsistent, ambiguous and contradictory. "On issues of substance, her evidence often deviated from objectively established facts. Such matters call into question her credibility. The Commission therefore came to the view that it could not accept her evidence on any contentious issue unless it involved an admission against interest or was corroborated by other reliable evidence.” Some acts endangered the community, ICAC said, including claiming to be a psychologist in which capacity she provided a parole report for a parolee known to her family.

“Ms Sharobeem’s false pretences created significant risks to the community in that she saw vulnerable people who required psychological treatment from a qualified professional,” ICAC found. Too good to be true Ms Sharobeem emigrated from Egypt in 1987. Her tale emerged as a redemption story everyone wanted to believe: a teenager forced into an arranged marriage to her first cousin, widowed at 29 with two young sons, having endured years in a violent marriage. She supposedly earned not one but two PhDs, rose to become chief executive of government funded health services that care for new migrants and earning a long list of community honours – including as a finalist for an honour from her adopted country on its national day. Her tale made her a media darling, developing a profile on the back of claims that she was a doctor, a double PhD, a working mum and had survived a violent marriage as a young woman.

A string of high-profile organisations and governments – state and federal, Liberal and Labor - were duped, appointing her to trophy boards; organisations such as SBS gave her a high-profile job; and the Australian of the Year Foundation not only waved her through to the final round of its awards but appointed her to their advisory council. All deferred to her as "Dr Sharobeem" – despite there being no evidence of degrees or that she was a registered psychologist. The high point of the charade came in late 2014, when then NSW premier, Mike Baird, stood beside an Australian of the Year finalist, handing her a commendation from her adopted country, smiling for the cameras. Eman Sharobeem and some of the fake timesheets. Credit:ICAC When he was social services minister, Christian Porter, now the federal Attorney General, appointed Ms Sharobeem a member of the Settlement Services Advisory Council. Former top cop Nick Kaldas wrote her a reference for one job. Authorities circling

In late 2015, ICAC was alerted to concerns within the South West Sydney Area Health Services that Ms Sharobeem had misappropriated more than $100,000 in funds from the IWHS, identified by the IWHS auditor Nathan Boyd. Loading By September 2016, Sharobeem was forced to appear at a secret hearing at ICAC. But just days after that compulsory interrogation, the Sharobeem family transferred more than $500,000 from the sale of a Sydney property to the wife of Ms Sharobeem's nephew in Egypt. In the wake of that transfer, the SMH revealed the NSW Crime Commission had won an asset freeze on Sharobeem’s property portfolio, sparking a series of revelations including that Sharobeem was not a registered psychologist and that there was no evidence she held any PhDs. In evidence to the commission, Ms Sharobeem claimed to have been awarded an honorary doctorate from the American University in Cairo. She said there was a document that proved she received the honorary degree but it must have been burnt during the Arab Spring in 2011. ICAC investigators detailed the extent of the fraud at public hearings and on Wednesday the commission found 24 serious corrupt conduct findings.