NEW YORK –
Jennifer Shah, a tearful “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” cast member who insisted she was not the character she played on the show, was sentenced Friday to 6 1/2 years in prison for defrauding thousands of people, many of them vulnerable or older. -old, in a telemarketing scam that lasted nearly a decade.
Shah, 49, was convicted by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein of being the ringleader of a nationwide scam targeting people who are often unsophisticated about electronics and can least afford to lose their money.
Shah pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy charges. Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year sentence, which would have been one year under the minimum recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, but well above the three years Shah’s attorney had suggested.
At the start of Friday’s hearing, Stein warned a courtroom packed with Shah’s family and friends and members of the media that he was not judging the face people see on television.
Stein said this guy was “just a character. It’s acting.” And added that the host program “includes role-playing. … This is a highly scripted operation.”
His words were echoed by Shah, who told the judge: “Reality TV has nothing to do with reality.”
She apologized to the “innocent people” she said she hurt and promised to pay $6.5 million in restitution and forfeiture when she gets out of prison.
“I struggled to take responsibility for the longest time because I deluded myself into believing … that I had done nothing wrong,” Shah said, calling it her “own fractured reality.”
“For years, I blamed other people for putting me in this position,” believing she had been deceived and manipulated, she said.
“Only I am responsible for my terrible decisions. It was all my fault and all my mistakes,” Shah said. “I have no one to blame but myself. … I wish I could have stood outside myself and seen the harm I was causing and changed course. I am deeply and deeply sorry.’
During the hearing, lawyer Priya Chaudhry said her client had undergone a dramatic transformation in recent months.
“Repentance can be sincere, even if it comes late. … Her apology is genuine,” she said.
After the verdict, Shah left the court without speaking to reporters. She will report to jail at a later date.
Assistant US Attorney Robert Sobelman said Shah was the leader of a “blatant and brazen fraud” that ran from 2012 to March 2021, as bogus services were advertised as allowing people to make significant amounts of money through online businesses . He called her the most guilty among more than 30 defendants.
“She always knew what she was doing wrong,” he said, noting her efforts to delay the investigation of her crimes by lying to investigators and taking evasive actions to obscure her true role in the fraud.
In a filing, prosecutors said she used the proceeds of the scam to live a life of luxury that included a nearly 10,000-square-foot mansion with eight fireplaces called the “Shah Ski Chalet” in the resort retreat of Park City, Utah. The home, they said, is now listed for sale for $7.4 million.
They said she also rented an apartment in midtown Manhattan, leased a Porsche Panamera, bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of luxury goods and financed various beauty treatments while defrauding the Internal Revenue Service of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The government said she also appears to be mocking the charges against her, claiming “the only thing I’m guilty of is being a chess player” and then profiting from it by marketing “Justice for Jen” merchandise after her arrest, how she ordered others to lie while trying to cover up their behavior from investigators.
At the sentencing, Shah said the proceeds from the sales of the suspended merchandise would go to the victims.
However, the judge said the victims could be healed financially, but they “really can’t be healed emotionally.”
“Their life was turned upside down,” Stein said.
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