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:
Shah shared that she felt a “sense of relief” now that she is no longer unsure of what her future holds. “For the first time I'm in a position where I know what is happening tomorrow … I know where I'm going to be tomorrow,” she recalled. “I know what my plan is going forward and so there's a sense of relief that I'm going to be able to put the past behind me, and finally start truly healing and forging a new path.” Courtesy of Jen Shah/Instagram
The RHOSLC star admitted she initially thought the government had the “wrong person” because she didn’t think she did anything wrong at first. “I was in complete denial at that time, and for a long time throughout the process because I truly believed and was telling myself that I'm not guilty of these things that they're accusing me of,” she confessed. Shah went on to explain how she thought she was being honest with her legal team at the start of the case. “I thought I was working very openly with my lawyers and conveying all of the facts as I recall them and what my involvement was, but then, you know, when I fast forward, I was really, it was like I was in this tunnel, right? And I was only seeing what I wanted to see and what I wanted to recall, and what I thought,” she said. “My perception was, 'I didn't do this.' I was in denial. And so it wasn't until much, much later, you know, a year later where finally I had, you know, as you get more information and you look at things, I had these difficult conversations with my attorney because I realized I had to take some responsibility." Bravo
After having difficult conversations with her attorney, Shah understood she “made a mistake” and that she “had to take some responsibility” for her actions. “That was really hard for me to finally accept. I was basically lying to myself,” she admitted. “I was lying to myself because I didn't want to accept that I had done these things, or that I had hurt anybody or created victims or my actions caused harm to people. I did not wanna accept that at all.” The reality star revealed that seeing the list of victims opened her eyes to see how her choices hurt others. “I made bad decisions. I used poor judgment. And as a direct result of that, there were people hurt, people that lost money,” she said. “And that was when I had to make the hardest decision of my life, where, despite what I had been saying, because I was adamant that I was innocent, despite saying that I had to sit there and say, you know what? I have to do the right thing now as hard as this is gonna be for me to stand up in front of my family, my supporters [and] the victims … and say, ‘You know what? I need to do the right thing.’” Chad Kirkland/Bravo
Shah revealed she was walking into her sentence with her Quaran and her “18-page” release plan. The document has “11 different sections” that are going to help keep herself “on track.” The Bravo personality shared that she would update, document and journal her prison sentence and publish it for the world to see so everyone can hold her “accountable.” “I know that there are people out there that don't believe what I'm saying right now because they feel like, oh my, you lied for so long you didn't accept responsibility. I get that all I can do going forward is show you.” Shah said. “I get me saying this isn't gonna convince a lot of people, but what will show [and convince people are my actions and following through and I want people to hold me accountable.” Courtesy of Jen Shah/Instagram
One of the biggest points in the TV personality’s release plan is to pay back the victims. “It's voluntary, but for me, I want to make it mandatory for me,” Shah explained. “My personal plan, it's not voluntary, it's mandatory. And I've made an amount, put an amount in that I'm going to be paying. And I put that in there because once it's in my plan, that's gonna hold me accountable. Then throughout, prison and after I have in there the plan to continue to pay restitution.” NBC
Before heading to her sentence, Shah used her last seconds to thank her supporters and family members for staying by her side throughout her legal battle. “I wanna say thank you for supporting me, for loving me, for standing by my side,” she said. “And I wanna say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for letting, for letting you down. I'm sorry for letting the victims down. And I want to from this point forward prove worthy. I want to make each victim whole. I want to prove worthy of the love and support that Sharrieff and Omar and Sharrieff Jr. and my mom have shown, my brothers and sisters have shown me throughout this journey.” Courtesy of Jen Shah/Instagram
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