‘Real Housewives’ Star Jen Shah Pleads Guilty on Criminal Fraud

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City‘s Jen Shah has changed her plea one week before her trial was set to begin.

Shah had been charged with criminal fraud following an alleged telemarketing scheme and had pleaded not guilty but changed that plea to guilty on July 11, according to Variety. She now faces up to 14 years in prison, and she will be sentenced on Monday, November 28.

Shah and others were accused of being involved in a long-running telemarketing scheme aimed at the elderly. Shah and one of her assistants, Stuart Smith, were arrested on March 30, 2021 and pleaded not guilty three days later. It has been seen both on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City (her arrest by the FBI in Season 2) and the Hulu Original by ABC News, The Housewife & the Shah Shocker, the latter which was announced in November 2021, after Shah plead not guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“Jennifer 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,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement when they were charged in March 2021. “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. Now, these defendants face time in prison for their alleged crimes.”

Added Peter C. Fitzhugh, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations, “Shah and Smith flaunted their lavish lifestyle to the public as a symbol of their ‘success.’ In reality, they allegedly built their opulent lifestyle at the expense of vulnerable, often elderly, working-class people.”

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