Jen Shah was working on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake Citybefore she was arrested on Tuesday, a source tells ET. Shah is facing federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in an alleged long-running telemarketing scam.
The source says that the cast was on a bus about to leave for Vail, Colorado, when Shah received a phone call. After the call, the source claims Shah announced her husband, Sharrieff Shah, was in the hospital and had to leave. According to the source, she was arrested minutes after leaving the bus. ET has reached out to Shah’s rep for comment on her husband’s possible hospitalization.
It’s unclear if Bravo cameras captured the arrest. ET has learned Shah’s her future on the show is uncertain as her criminal case unfolds. Production on the show has resumed without her.
In a statement earlier on Tuesday, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said, “Jennifer Shah, who portrays herself as a wealthy and successful business person 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. In actual reality and as alleged, the so-called business opportunities pushed on the victims by Shah, Smith, and their co-conspirators were just fraudulent schemes, motivated by greed, to steal victims’ money. Now, these defendants face time in prison for their alleged crimes.”
Homeland Security Investigations Agent-in-Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh also made a statement about the arrests, again calling out Smith and Shah’s “lavish lifestyle.”
“In reality, they allegedly built their opulent lifestyle at the expense of vulnerable, often elderly, working-class people. As alleged, disturbingly, Shah and Smith objectified their very real human victims as ‘leads’ to be bought and sold, offering their personal information for sale to other members of their fraud ring,” he said. “Working with our partners at the NYPD and the United States Attorney’s Office, SDNY, and with the assistance of HSI Salt Lake City, HSI New York worked to ensure that Shah and Smith will answer for their alleged crimes. As a result, their new reality may very well turn out differently than they expected.”
The New York Police Department is alleging that Shah and Smith have “hundreds” of victims in an alleged scam that ran for at least nine years, starting in 2012 and going on until just this month.
