Jen Shah spoke out in her first interview since her release, saying she takes “full responsibility” for her role in a telemarketing scheme that defrauded the elderly and economically disadvantaged.
In an interview with People magazine, the former “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star, who was released in December after serving nearly three years in a federal prisoner of war camp, admitted that she “made the wrong decision.”
“I should have done things differently. I should have been more diligent,” she said. “And I deeply regret and am sorry for my actions and my role. I take full responsibility.”
Shah was arrested by federal agents in March 2021 and maintained his innocence for a full year before pleading guilty to wire fraud conspiracy during his trial. She was originally sentenced to six and a half years in prison and is currently serving the remainder of her sentence under home confinement.
But Shah still says he didn’t fully realize he was part of a telemarketing scheme until federal prosecutors confronted him with a trove of evidence during his trial.
“It’s been a long and very complicated journey that has brought me to this point,” Shah told People magazine. “And without re-litigating, I got into this case because I made terrible business decisions and ignored serious red flags. I allowed the lines between personal friendships and ethical business practices to blur. And essentially, I trusted the wrong people at a very critical time in my life.”
“Most of the time I thought I was doing the right thing. I was working for the people who were running these companies.”
Shah said all this was mixed up with problems within her marriage and several deaths in her family, which led to her “clouded judgment”.
“My involvement in this conspiracy coincided with my own personal pain,” Shah said. “My husband and I were separated. We were on the verge of divorce. The deaths of my grandmother, father, and aunt within a short period of time left me overwhelmed with immense grief. I was falling deeper into the clinical depression I had previously been diagnosed with.”
Shah continued, “And for me to say all this is not an excuse, because it’s not like I wasn’t making good business decisions. And then you wake up one morning and all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Oh, I made a bad business decision.'” This is the totality of everything that was going on and a duplication of what I was dealing with personally. And I tried to avoid all that with alcohol, numb it, just avoid it. ”
Now that she’s released from prison, some viewers are lobbying for her to return to “RHOSLC.” However, host Andy Cohen has made it clear that he has no interest in bringing her back to television.
“I want to say again to anyone who asks, and I think I’ve said it before, she’s not coming back to ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.’ She’s not,” Cohen said on his show “Radio Andy” in December. “So I wish her luck in the afterlife. I think she’ll end up on some kind of reality show, but that’s not something I’m working on. I don’t think I can see Bravo working with her again.”
