Jen Shah Speaks Out After Prison Release

More than three months after her prison release, “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” alum Jen Shah is breaking her silence.

Shah took responsibility for her transgressions, telling People magazine, "I was wrong. I made wrong decisions. I should have done things differently. I should have been more diligent. And I'm deeply remorseful and sorry for my actions and for my part. I take full responsibility.” 

In January 2023, a judge handed down a six-and-a-half-year sentence for Shah, who was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing, through which they victimized 10 or more persons over the age of 55, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Shah served two years and nine months at Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, before she was released in December.

Jen noted, "It's a long and a very complex journey that brought me to this point. And without re-litigating it, I became involved in the case because I made horrible business decisions and I disregarded huge red flags. I allowed the lines to be blurred between personal friendships and ethical business practices. And in essence, I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life.”

"I thought I was doing the right thing for the majority of the time,” she added while referencing her work with direct response marketing. “I was working under people who were running these companies.”

Shah insisted that she thought the companies she was working with were legitimate. 

She elaborated, "What happened was down the line, people that I worked with were working with a lot of other people. Once that initial fulfillment was happening, things were happening beyond the point of sale with that customer that I didn’t know about.”

Despite what happened, Jen isn’t playing the blame game, saying, "It can happen if you’re not careful, if you’re not being diligent and you’re not paying attention to the red flags. But you have a responsibility once you’re in that position to make sure it doesn’t.”

Jen admitted there were factors that “clouded my judgment.”

She emphasized, "What's important for me to say — and I need to let people know — was at the same time, my involvement in this conspiracy overlapped with my own personal pain. My husband [Sharrieff ‘Coach' Shah] and I were separated. We were on the verge of a divorce. I was overwhelmed with immense grief from the death of my grandmother, my father and my aunt, all in a very short period of time. I was spiraling deeper into my previously diagnosed clinical depression.”

"And the reason I say all that is not as an excuse,” Shah continued. "Because it's not like I was making good business decisions and then I woke up one morning and all of a sudden it's like, 'Oh, I made a bad business decision.' This is the totality of everything that was going on and the overlapping of what I was dealing with personally. And I tried to avoid and numb all of that with alcohol and just avoid it.”

She admitted, "I trusted the wrong people at a very vulnerable time in my life.”

While Jen initially argued that she was innocent, things changed in July 2022 when her attorneys were hit with evidence from prosecutors.

She recalled, "It was like a train hit. That was the first time I saw all of it — the communications, the interviews, the witnesses. I saw for the first time that there were people who were hurt. That there were actual victims as a result of this conspiracy. I had never seen anything with my own eyes. That changed things for me.”

Shah agreed to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement, which would require her to pay more than $9 million in restitution to victims and forfeit $6 million.

Along with saying “I’m sorry,” Jen said, “I’m accepting responsibility, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that people are paid back.”