By Joseph Nathan.
She stole more than a million dollars meant for vulnerable kids. Now she’s going to jail.
Iesha Warren has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison after ripping off over $1 million from a Porirua charity that helps struggling whānau.
Warren was the financial administrator at Te Roopu Awhina Ki Porirua Trust, a community group that runs health, education and care programmes for local families. Instead of protecting the books, she used them to fund her online gambling habit.
Between 2019 and 2021, she became the main person managing the Trust’s finances. With full access to the accounts, she redirected $1.06 million into her own bank accounts.
Her methods included:
- Replacing suppliers’ bank details with her own
- Transferring Trust funds straight into personal accounts
- Using charity debit cards to gamble online
To cover her tracks, she disguised the transactions in the Trust’s accounting system as genuine business expenses.
The fraud continued until June 2021. She later failed to show up for court in August 2023, earning an extra charge of failing to appear.
Warren finally pleaded guilty in March 2025 to obtaining by deception and failing to appear. She was sentenced in the Wellington District Court on Monday.
SFO Director Karen Chang said the theft wasn’t just about money — it hurt real families.
“This offending targeted public funding intended to support the welfare, health and education of children within Porirua,” Chang said. “It can lead to communities missing out on essential services and erode trust in community leaders and institutions.”
The Trust was left reeling. Some programmes had to be scaled back while the money vanished into online casinos.
The Paper 