In a new interview, Jen Shah shared her final thoughts before she officially reported to her 78 months prison sentence.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star, 49, sat down with her lawyer for a video interview released on Friday, February 17, ahead of her surrender to the Federal Prison Camp, Bryan (FPC Bryan) in Texas.
“There’s so many emotions that I’m feeling right at this moment and getting ready to surrender is emotional,” Shah said. “You know I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous and scared. Because to be away from my family, that’s what I fear the most is you know that transition of not being able to hug and kiss my boys and my husband every day and my mom and but at the same time, all of those emotions I also feel hopeful and am motivated to do a good job, you know, and make the most of my time away.”
The Utah native was arrested in March 2021 — during the production of season 2 of RHOSLC — for an alleged telemarketing scheme that defrauded “hundreds” of people. Shah was charged, alongside her assistant Stuart Smith, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing 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 press release at the time of the pair’s arrest. “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.”
While the reality star maintained her innocence at first, she ended up changing her plea to guilty for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in July 2022. (Smith also pleaded guilty in November 2021.)
“In 2012 to March 2021 in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere I agreed with others to commit wire fraud,” she said in court at the time. “I knew this was wrong. I knew many people were harmed and I’m so sorry.”
In January, the Bravo personality was officially sentenced to six and a half years in prison and five years of supervised release. She is also required to pay $6,645,251 in restitution and forfeit $6,500,000, 30 luxury items and 78 counterfeit luxury items. Shah was ordered to report to her sentence no later than February 17.
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Keep scrolling for Shah’s biggest revelations from her sit-down: