JEN SHAH GUILTY TRIAL

Others, however, have also had brushes with the law. Shah is the most high-profile of the Real Housewives cast members to face criminal charges. Shah and Smith also argued that opinions on the “lavish lifestyle” of “fraudsters” was only an attempt to “poison” the pool of potential jurors for her case. Shah had attempted to use the documentary to have the case thrown out, arguing that it was “reprehensible” and would “severely jeopardize” her right to a fair trial. “I’ve been able to do it because what I’ve been able to carve out, the niche I’ve been able to carve out in the direct response marketing world.”Ĭriminal charges against her later produced led to their own Hulu documentary, The Housewife & The Shah Shocker, in which alleged victims of the scheme described how they had been defrauded. “People will come to me and I’ll invest in their companies, so we have a got a lot of different investments, all different kinds of things,” Shah said of her career on Access Hollywood’s show Housewives Nightcap in November 2020. Throughout season two of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, from September 2021 to March this year, Shah talked about her business ventures. “In actual reality and as alleged, the so-called business opportunities pushed on the victims by Shah, Smith and their co-conspirators were just fraudulent schemes, motivated by greed, to steal victims’ money.”

Shah was potentially facing up to 50 years in prison if convicted at trial.Īfter her arrest in March 2021, Manhattan-based US attorney Audrey Strauss said in a press release that Shah, “who portrays herself as a wealthy and successful businessperson on ‘reality’ television, and Stuart Smith, who is portrayed as Shah’s ‘first assistant’, allegedly generated and sold ‘lead lists’ of innocent individuals for other members of their scheme to repeatedly scam. Prosecutors have asked for a sentence of up to 14 years in prison, restitution of more than $9m to victims and a forfeiture of $6m.

JEN SHAH GUILTY TRIAL

Pundits regarded the case as the celebrity trial of the summer, but Shah is now simply awaiting a sentencing hearing tentatively set for November. Prosecutors dropped the conspiracy to commit money laundering charge in exchange for her plea switch. Under the terms of a deal with federal prosecutors in New York’s southern district, Shah pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing. She had maintained that plea even after Stuart Smith, her assistant, changed his to guilty late last year. 'She and her co-conspirators persisted in their conduct until the victims’ bank accounts were empty, their credit cards were at their limits, and there was nothing more to take.Shah had initially pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering after she was arrested in Utah in March last year.

Attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote, the outlet shared. 'At the defendant’s direction, victims were defrauded over and over again until they had nothing left,' Damian Williams, U.S. Shah, 49, is described as 'the most guilty individual charged in this case' and 'an integral leader of a wide-ranging, nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme that victimized thousands of innocent people. The RHOSLC was ultimately sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. This came ahead of her sentencing on January 6 for operating a nationwide telemarketing scheme targeting seniors, according to recently filed court documents that also include previously unreported victim impact statements from some of the elderly people she defrauded. The Justice Department reportedly sought a 10-year prison sentence for The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah, NBC News reported. 'The most culpable person charged in this case'

Jen shah guilty