Jen Shah's Attorney Speaks Out On Her Prison Fate
"The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" star Jen Shah's long-awaited sentencing hearing for her fraud conviction has finally arrived. The reality star pleaded guilty to wire fraud back in July of 2022, according to NBC News, saying in court, "[I] knew it was wrong, many people were harmed and I'm so sorry." Shah had been looking at $9.5 million in restitution fees and up to 14 years in prison. At the time, her attorney, Priya Chaudhry, said, "Ms. Shah is a good woman who crossed a line. She accepts full responsibility for her actions and deeply apologizes to all who have been harmed."
Ultimately, the judge sentenced Shah to six-and-a-half years in prison, per Vulture, plus five years of supervised release. She was ordered to forfeit $6.5 million, 108 luxury items of both the genuine and bootleg varieties (mostly bootleg, it looks like), and pay over $6.6 million in restitution. At her sentencing hearing, Chaudhry said, per a live-tweet thread by Inner City Press, "Jen hoped that the TV spotlight would hide her pain. She spent years trying to hide her feeling, to fake it until she make it. She tried not to see the people who lost money. Her original fraud was on herself."
Now that the sentence has been set, Shah's lawyer made another statement on her client's behalf.
Jen Shah's lawyer says she accepts the sentence as just
Anyone who's ever watched "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" has seen Jen Shah protest again and again that she was innocent of all the charges against her — and lash out at any of her friends or cast mates who breathed a word of doubt. Now, the former Real Housewife is singing quite a different tune. Following her sentencing, according to NBC News, Shah's attorney Priya Chaudhry said in a statement, "Jen Shah deeply regrets the mistakes that she has made and is profoundly sorry to the people she has hurt. Jen has faith in our justice system, understands that anyone who breaks the law will be punished, and accepts this sentence as just." The statement continued, "Jen will pay her debt to society and when she is a free woman again, she vows to pay her debt to the victims harmed by her mistakes."
Shah, along with her "assistant" Stuart Smith, were indicted in 2021 on charges of wire fraud, according to Vulture. The indictment claimed Shah and Smith were in charge of a widespread telemarketing scheme that targeted the elderly, selling them phony "business services" that "defrauded hundreds of victims."
We hope Shah's apology is a genuine one because the crimes to which she has pled guilty are, to use a common pun, Shah-palling.