The feds are coming for ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ star Jen Shah — and her alleged criminal activity has gone from bad to worse.
Jen has now been classified as an alleged “senior participant” in the telemarketing scheme that led to her arrest earlier this year.
via People:
According to a new court document obtained by PEOPLE, the reality star, 47, and her assistant Stuart Smith are both “Tier A” defendants in the ongoing fraud case. The document claims Shah and Smith were “responsible for orchestrating the broader scheme” and “supplying the leads that sustained” the telemarketing companies.
“In particular, Jennifer Shah and Stuart Smith obtained leads directly from lead sources and provided them to, among others, coaching sales floors operated in Utah and Nevada by [other defendants],” the document alleges, as first reported by TMZ.
In a statement to PEOPLE, Shah’s lawyer Priya Chaudhry says, “After investigating for nearly ten years, and a 12-day trial in which Ms. Shah was never mentioned, the Government suddenly lobs this absurd claim. This is just their latest made-up allegation, and like all others, totally unsupported by evidence. The reality is — she is totally innocent.”
A rep for Bravo had no comment when reached by PEOPLE.
Four other defendants are also listed as Tier A in the document, while 23 others are classified in Tiers 1 through 4. Another Tier A defendant has already been sentenced to 78 months in prison, while some others in the lower tiers have received anywhere from 366 days to 87 months.
The document notes that Tier A was added to the classification list to reflect the defendants’ alleged “greater culpability,” and claims “many” of the senior participants “continued to participate in the Scheme after they became aware of the criminal charges.”
Shah and Smith, 43, were arrested and charged in March with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing — through which they allegedly victimized 10 or more persons over the age of 55 — and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The two pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in April.
In a press release announcing their arrest, prosecutors alleged that Shah and Smith carried out a nationwide telemarketing scheme with the help of others between 2012 and March of this year. They stand accused of having “defrauded hundreds of victims” with purported business services.
Prosecutors claim Shah and Smith’s scheme was a “coordinated effort to traffic in lists of potential victims,” referred to as “leads.” From there, they allegedly sold those leads to telemarketing companies that would attempt to sell business services to the targeted individuals.
Both “received as profit a share of the fraudulent revenue per the terms of their agreement with those participants,” according to the indictment.
Last month, Shah attempted to have her case dismissed, claiming in a signed declaration obtained by PEOPLE that she was suffering from “blurry vision” due to “dry” contact lenses when she was being notified of her Miranda rights after her arrest, and thus “was unable to read” the waiver in front of her when she signed it.
Her claim came as part of a motion by her attorneys, filed on June 14 in a Manhattan court, asking to dismiss her case. On July 7, prosecutors opposed the motion, per another document obtained by PEOPLE.
She always DID emphasize that she was the boss.
