‘RHOSLC’ Alum Jen Shah Breaks Silence on Telemarketing Fraud After Prison Release: ‘I Was Wrong’

Jen Shah is speaking out for the first time since her release from prison, taking accountability for her role in a sweeping telemarketing fraud scheme that targeted vulnerable victims.

In a shocking sit-down interview with People, published four months after she was released from federal prison, the former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star admitted, “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,” she added. “I take full responsibility.”

Shah was arrested in 2021 and later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said she ran a telemarketing scheme from 2012 to 2021 that targeted thousands of victims, many of them elderly and financially vulnerable.

She was released in December 2025 from a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, and is now serving the remainder of her prison sentence under home confinement.

Authorities alleged Shah and her co-conspirators used encrypted messaging platforms to conceal the operation. Reflecting on her actions, Shah described it as “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,” she explained.

Shah added that she believed she was “doing the right thing for the majority of the time.”

“I was working under people who were running these companies,” she shared.

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

The former Bravo personality said she now understands where she failed. “It can happen if you’re not careful, if you’re not being diligent and you’re not paying attention to the red flags,” she admitted. “But you have a responsibility once you’re in that position to make sure it doesn’t.”

Shah also shared that her involvement in the scheme was overlapped with personal struggles, including a separation from her husband, Sharrieff “Coach” Shah and multiple family deaths. “I was spiraling deeper into my previously diagnosed clinical depression,” she said, though acknowledging those circumstances were not an “excuse.”

“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.”

Shah said it wasn’t until July 2022 — weeks before her trial — that she fully grasped the scope of the case against her.

“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,” she continued. “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.”

She pleaded guilty days later. Now, Shah says she is focused on repaying the $6.6 million she owes in restitution.

“I’m accepting responsibility, and I’ve made it my mission to make sure that people are paid back.”