RHOSLC star Jen Shah sticks by husband internal bleeding story, as her assistant Stuart Smith changes plea to guilty in a telemarketing scheme
Last night’s (Nov. 21, 2021) episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City saw Jen Shah double down on her previous claim that she fled a Colorado-bound bus because her husband, Sharrieff Shah Sr., was suffering from “internal bleeding,” just moments before feds showed up to arrest her.
“What I have been accused of is absolutely the complete opposite of anything I would ever do in my life,” she said in a confessional. “If I have any fault, it is because I am too giving and I help too many people.”
“When I was sitting on the bus, I got a phone call that showed my husband’s phone number on my phone,” Jen, 47, told the camera, recounting the shocking group scene with Heather Gay, Lisa Barlow, Jennie Nguyen and Whitney Rose.
“And then I was like, ‘Wait, this is not my husband’s voice,’” Shah continued, though she didn’t clarify whose voice it was.
“They told me, ‘You need to go home, get [my son] Omar and then come meet Sharrieff, he’s at the University of Utah Hospital.’ I immediately went, ‘Oh my God, is Sharrieff OK? This is an emergency.’”
Stuart Smith, the assistant to Shah, has changed his plea for his involvement in an alleged nationwide fraud scheme.
Smith, 43, is pleading guilty after appearing on Friday before Southern District of New York Judge Sidney H. Stein.
In March 2021, Smith and Shah were arrested for allegedly conspiring to commit wire fraud and laundering money in connection to a purported telemarketing scam. They were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They allegedly victimized 10 or more people over the age of 55.
“Jennifer Shah, who portrays herself as a wealthy and successful businessperson on ‘reality’ television, and Stuart Smith, who is portrayed as Shah’s ‘first assistant,’ allegedly generated and sold ‘lead lists’ of innocent individuals for other members of their scheme to repeatedly scam,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss alleged in a statement.
Prosecutors say Shah and Smith flaunted their lavish lifestyle to the public as a symbol of their “success,” which they claim is all a fraud. “In reality, they allegedly built their opulent lifestyle at the expense of vulnerable, often elderly, working-class people,” added New York Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent-in-Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh.
The New York Police Department said the number of victims Shah and Smith have duped stand in the “hundreds,” adding that the alleged fraud had been perpetuated for nearly a decade, starting in 2012.
“These individuals allegedly targeted and defrauded hundreds of victims but thanks to the hard work of the NYPD and our law enforcement partners, this illegal scheme was brought to an end,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in the statement.
