‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ member admits to fraud

NEW YORK—A member of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” pleaded responsible Monday to a fraud conspiracy charge that could final result in a jail sentence of over 11 yrs.

Jennifer Shah, 48, of Park City, Utah, entered the plea to a single rely of conspiracy to dedicate wire fraud in Manhattan federal court docket just after signing a plea arrangement with prosecutors a working day earlier that carries a advisable sentencing selection of 11 to 14 a long time driving bars.

She instructed a judge that commencing in 2012, she participated in a significant telemarketing fraud for approximately a decade that prosecutors say cheated countless numbers of persons nationwide, together with some more than age 55.

She stated she understood that she was teaming up with other people to industry products and solutions to people “that had minor or no value.”

“I knew this was incorrect and that numerous men and women had been harmed and I’m so sorry,” Shah told Decide Sidney H. Stein.

Sentencing was established for Nov. 28. Shah remained cost-free on bail but did not talk as she still left the courthouse and walked a short distance to a ready motor vehicle.

In a assertion afterward, U.S. Legal professional Damian Williams referred to as Shah a “key participant in a nationwide scheme that targeted elderly, vulnerable victims.”

He added: “These victims have been bought fake promises of economical security but in its place Shah and her co-conspirators defrauded them out of their savings and remaining them with nothing at all to show for it.”

Assistant U.S. Legal professional Kiersten Ann Fletcher reported Shah acted as a “lead broker,” directing what sales workers stated to their victims and sharing in unlawful gains, employing some of the money to pay back for the New York Town apartment the place she lived and for other personal goods.

As part of her plea agreement, Shah agreed to forfeit $6.5 million and to pay $9.5 million in restitution.

Fletcher stated Shah engaged in a fraud from 2012 to March 2021 that marketed bogus products and services that ended up promoted as able of enabling people to make substantial amounts of revenue by way of on the net businesses.

Prosecutors explained Shah and others sent lists of individuals to purchasers of the “Business Possibility Scheme” that essentially consisted of others who had earlier paid to generate their very own online businesses.

They mentioned she lied about how much people could make after purchasing the businesses providers and the purported success of other folks who had acquired the companies.

Shah began running a Manhattan-based mostly revenue floor that sold the fraudulent solutions, Fletcher claimed.

From 2018 to 2020, Shah managed the working day-to-day functions of the Manhattan operation and moved some of its functions to Kosovo to dodge regulation enforcement and regulatory scrutiny, the prosecutor stated.

Prosecutors claimed Shah took various ways to cover her purpose in the fraud, together with by incorporating her enterprise entities utilizing third parties’ names, instructing other folks to do the exact same and directing others to use encrypted messaging apps to converse with each individual other. They explained she also created quite a few income withdrawals structured to stay clear of currency transaction reporting necessities.

Fletcher explained Shah informed a person co-conspirator to lie below oath when questioned by the Federal Trade Fee and presented him with penned chatting factors to observe through the deposition.

She added that tax returns confirmed Shah had less than-documented her proceeds from the fraud by hundreds of hundreds of pounds.

Shah also acknowledged during her plea that she had been through therapy two years back for liquor and despair.

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This story has been up-to-date to appropriate that Shah, not Fletcher, acknowledged cure for alcohol and despair, and that Shah agreed to pay $9.5 million in restitution, not $9.5.

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