Five months after she pleaded guilty to defrauding elderly people out of millions in an elaborate telemarketing scam, disgraced Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah was sentenced Friday to six and a half years behind bars, with an additional five years of supervised release.
It’s a dramatic end for Shah, 49, who had asked a New York judge for just a three-year sentence because she claimed she wasn’t the operation’s kingpin.
This apparently didn’t matter to Judge Sidney Stein, who admonished Shah for knowingly scamming a vulnerable population for nearly a decade—from 2012 to March 2021—by aiding shady telemarketers who took their money but sold nothing.
ADVERTISEMENT
Hearings uncovered that Shah’s role in the scheme was “providing customer names to people who were marketing business services that had little or no value.”
“Ms. Shah’s piece of the puzzle, though important, was not enough to carry out this fraud without these other crucial pieces controlled and directed by experienced criminals (who were not Ms. Shah),” her attorney, Priya Chaudhry, claimed.
Prosecutors later contested this, saying at Shah’s sentencing: “Ms. Shah worked hard, making as much money as she could for herself, defrauding the elderly. Every cooperator told us, Jen Shah is the boss. They all knew who she was.”
At times, it appeared Shah forgot her trial was actual reality—not just reality TV.
Prosecutors attacked her behavior after her arrest, on March 30, 2021, when she lied to law enforcement in a voluntarily recorded interview before launching a public PR campaign to cleanse her image.
Prosecutors noted she “repeatedly, vehemently, and falsely proclaimed her innocence,” while mocking the severity of the allegations levied against her.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Shah pleaded guilty to a count of wire fraud in July—a charge that could've carried up to 13 years in prison.
Despite admitting to the scam, prosecutors skewered Shah for mocking the charges when she bizarrely stated “the only thing I’m guilty of is being Shah-mazing.” She then attempted to profit off her time in court, marketing “Justice for Jen” merchandise and selling it online.
The marketing ploy ticked Stein off enough that she brought up the merchandise just minutes before Shah’s sentencing.
“Is she still selling ‘Free Jen’ or ‘Justice for Jen’ merchandise on her website or has that been taken down?” Stein said.
Chaudhry said Friday her client “knows she has devastated the lives of so many” and that she’ll never forget her victims’ names.
Reporters in the building noted the courtroom was packed with relatives and supporters of the reality star. Before issuing Shah her sentence, Stein made clear it had nothing to do with her role on Real Housewives.
“People should not confuse, and this court is not going to confuse, the character she plays on an entertainment show with the person I have before me,” Stein said. “...I must compare her sentence to those of others, less responsible than she was. She was a leader of the conspiracy.”
