Prison sentence reduced for ‘Real Housewives of SLC’ star Jen Shah

BRYON, Texas — The prison term for Jen Shah has been reduced by one year. Shah, one of the stars of the reality television program “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” was previously sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.

The information about Shah’s reduced sentence came from the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate database, where Shah’s release date has been changed to August 2028.

In mid-February, Shah, 49, was booked into a minimum security federal prison camp in Bryon, Texas, after pleading guilty to running a telemarketing scheme that targeted elderly victims.

According to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, Shah sold “lead lists,” which were reportedly used by other people involved in the scam.

Those people on the lists, most of them elderly, were repeatedly scammed in a telemarketing scheme, Strauss said.

“Jennifer Shah was a key participant in a nationwide scheme that targeted elderly, vulnerable victims. These victims were sold false promises of financial security but instead Shah and her co-conspirators defrauded them out of their savings and left them with nothing to show for it,” said Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Shah was arrested in March 2021. Officials also arrested Shah’s assistant, 43-year-old Stuart Smith, of Lehi. Both pleaded not guilty the next month, but Smith changed his plea to guilty in November.

Shah then pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges in July 2022. Shah pledged to pay $6.5 million in restitution and forfeiture when she gets out of prison, and she apologized to everyone cheated by the fraud during her sentencing hearing in January.

NBC News reported Shah said in court she “knew it was wrong, many people were harmed and I’m so sorry.”

She admitted that she “agreed with others to commit wire fraud” and “knew it misled” victims. Shah added there was a “misrepresentation of the product … regarding value of the service,” noting it “had little to no value.”

The Associated Press reported that prosecutors said in a presentence submission that Shah should get a decade in prison, noting that she used profits from her fraud to live a life of luxury that included a nearly 10,000-square-foot mansion with eight fireplaces dubbed “Shah Ski Chalet” in the resort haven of Park City, Utah. The home, they said, was listed for sale for $7.4 million in 2022.

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 funded various cosmetic procedures while cheating the Internal Revenue Service of hundreds of thousands of dollars.