Jen Shah’s legal troubles will be investigated in a new documentary from Hulu and ABC News.
via People:
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star, 48, and her assistant Stuart Smith 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 guiltyduring an arraignment in April.
The Housewife & the Shah Shocker, premiering Nov. 29, will dive into the accusations against Shah. Per a press release, it will feature interviews with some of Shah’s friends, employees and family members, as well as the alleged victims of the telemarketing scheme.
“When you think of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, I’m sorry, it’s the Jen Shah show,” one of the individuals interviewed in the upcoming documentary says in the trailer, released Thursday.
“She was giving us the money, she was giving us the looks, it seemed like she was the prime housewife,” another adds.
Shah’s arrest was captured by the RHOSLC cameras and aired in an episode earlier this month.
“We’ve seen a lot of things on The Real Housewives, but we’ve never seen anybody be arrested,” someone in the documentary comments.
Another notes that speaking with the victims of the alleged fraud was “heart-wrenching.”
“If I could talk to the people that scammed me, I would say, ‘Would you do this to your mother?” one of the alleged victims says.
Shah’s former designer Koa Johnson is also featured in the documentary, telling the cameras, “She does say that she’s the Wizard of Oz, the woman behind the curtain. I think she’s the Wicked Witch of the West.”
In a press release announcing Shah’s arrest earlier this year, prosecutors alleged she and Smith carried out a nationwide telemarketing scheme with the help of others between 2012 and March of this year. They are accused of having “defrauded hundreds of victims” with purported business services.
Prosecutors further claimed 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.
According to a court document obtained by PEOPLE in July, Shah and Smith are both “Tier A” defendants in the ongoing fraud case. The document claims the duo were “responsible for orchestrating the broader scheme” and “supplying the leads that sustained” the telemarketing companies.
‘The Housewife & the Shah Shocker’ will be available to stream Nov. 29 on Hulu. Check out the trailer below.
