“Actual Housewives of Salt Lake Metropolis” star Jen Shah was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail after pleading responsible to her involvement in a nationwide, long-running telemarketing scheme that largely focused senior residents.
Shah, 49, initially denied the allegations and pleaded not responsible to expenses of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and cash laundering after federal brokers arrested her in 2021. However in a surprising reversal per week earlier than her trial was set to start out in July, the fact tv star entered a responsible plea and agreed to forfeit thousands and thousands of {dollars} tied to the scheme in change for prosecutors dropping the money-laundering cost.
“I knew this was improper. I knew folks have been harmed,” the Bravo star testified earlier than a Manhattan court docket final summer season. “I’m so sorry.”
Shah’s expenses carried a most 30 years in jail, however the phrases of her plea deal set sentencing tips at 11 to 14 years. Prosecutors sought 10 years, whereas her authorized group requested the choose for 3.
“I knew this was improper. I knew folks have been harmed.”
– Jen Shah
In pleading responsible, Shah admitted to orchestrating a wide-ranging fraud ring along with her enterprise associate Stuart Smith, who was additionally arrested and pleaded responsible. As a part of their almost decade-long scheme, Shah and Smith generated and offered lists of a whole lot of results in others concerned within the operation, realizing they have been utilizing the data they bought to repeatedly defraud harmless folks by telemarketing scams. Their enterprise raked in cash by promoting the victims sham companies for tax preparation, web site design and different enterprise assets, in accordance with the pair’s indictment.
Maybe most disturbingly, their operation largely trafficked in one of many best targets for scammers: senior residents.
“Jennifer Shah was a key participant in a nationwide scheme that focused aged, weak victims,” Damian Williams, U.S. lawyer for the Southern District of New York, stated in a July statement. “These victims have been offered false guarantees of economic safety however as a substitute Shah and her co-conspirators defrauded them out of their financial savings and left them with nothing to point out for it.”
Homeland Safety Investigations Particular Agent-in-Cost Peter Fitzhugh additionally had harsh phrases for Shah and Smith, saying they “flaunted their lavish way of life to the general public as an emblem of their success. In actuality, they allegedly constructed their opulent way of life on the expense of weak, usually aged, working-class folks.”
Like “Actual Housewives” stars before her, Shah’s authorized woes performed out earlier than the cameras in spectacular actuality tv trend. She spent the primary season of her Bravo present parading her wealth earlier than viewers ― as the ladies who star on the community’s multi-city franchise are anticipated to do ― within the type of her palatial “Shah Chalet,” a small military of assistants and five-figure events. Her way of life, she ceaselessly quipped to viewers, was nothing in need of “Shah-mazing.”
At a 2020 reunion episode for the primary season, Shah gave a obscure response when Bravo host Andy Cohen pressed her to elucidate what precisely she did for work.
“My background is in direct response advertising for about 20 years, so our firm does promoting,” she stated. “We’ve a platform that helps folks purchase clients, so whenever you’re purchasing on-line or on the web and one thing pops, now we have the algorithm behind why you’re getting served that advert.”
By the center of the second season that completed airing final yr, Division of Homeland Safety brokers had appeared on the present to arrest her in a sting operation, accusing her of amassing the wealth she paraded on TV by a sinister scheme. Greater than 800,000 viewers tuned in to observe the drama unfold.
Shah is married to Sharrieff Shah, a coach for the College of Utah soccer group who has made frequent appearances on his spouse’s present. They’ve two sons.
