‘Housewife’ battling feds
Shah: Nix scam case because agents blabbed in Hulu doc
A “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star wants a judge to toss an indictment charging her with an elaborate telemarketing scam because the feds talked about the case in a new Hulu documentary.
Reality television celeb Jen Shah, 47, was busted in March for allegedly fleecing investors through sham online business opportunities. Shah is accused of playing a leadership role in the scam, selling “lead lists” of potential victims to “sales floors” of telemarketers around the country.
Shah now claims that Homeland Security Investigations agents tainted her right to a fair trial by speaking on the record for Hulu’s popular documentary “The Housewife and the Shah Shocker.”
The comments by two HSI agents were “extraordinary and completely outside the bounds of reasonable behavior,” Shah’s attorney Priya Chaudry wrote Monday.
Federal prosecutors countered that the agents’ statements in the 48-minute documentary are brief and did not violate any rules. Rick Patel, the acting special agent in charge of HSI’s New York field office, merely commented that Shah was not hard to find.
“We don’t look for specific timing to do arrests. In the case of Jen Shah, she had a television crew that was following her on a regular basis, right. So, it was not planned in any way,” Patel said in the documentary.
Later in the show, Agnieszka Norman, a supervisory special agent with HSI New York, speaks broadly about the alleged telemarketing fraud mostly targeting victims over 55.
Shah’s arrest played out on a Nov. 14 episode of “Real Housewives” as HSI agents and NYPD officers first descended on a group of cast members in a van outside Beauty Lab in Salt Lake City. Later in the episode, law enforcement raided Shah’s home with guns drawn.
Shah’s attorney said the feds violated the “Free Press-Fair Trial” directive, which prohibits lawyers from releasing “nonpublic information” in a case if the information could “interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kiersten Fletcher wrote in a Manhattan Federal Court filing that the comments didn’t violate that rule.
Shah and her personal assistant Stuart Smith are accused of playing a key role in the scam, which tricked victims into thinking they were making legitimate investments, according to an indictment. But the elderly marks never earned any of the promised returns on their investment, the feds say.
Shah has been featured in the “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” since November 2020. The flamboyant reality star dominated the show, flaunting her wealth and getting into dramatic conflicts with castmates.
She is married to University of Utah assistant football coach Sharrieff Shah.
Smith was a member of the “Shah Squad” team of assistants who followed the businesswoman wherever she went. He has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction charges.