Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - CELEBRITY: Reality Housewife Jen Shah

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Jen Shah's larger-than-life antics on "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" made her a reality TV star. But the thing that really got Jen Shah's name in the headlines was the massive telemarketing fraud scheme that made her fortune...and landed her in prison. Money Crimes is a Crime House Original. For more content, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. No one does drama quite like The Real Housewives, and few did it better than Jen Shaw from the cast of Salt Lake City. During the show's first season, Jen quickly became a fan favorite. Whether viewers really loved her or really loved to hate her, Jen made for great TV. She was, in her words, shamazing. From doing the worm to throwing her drink, Jen Shaw was impossible to ignore, especially when the FBI came looking for her in the middle of filming. No matter how outlandish these reality shows may get, no one had that on their bingo card. But this was possibly

the realest thing ever captured on The Real Housewives. It showed who Jen Shaw really was behind all the money, makeup, and mayhem. And it wasn't pretty. As the saying goes, those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it. That's especially true when it comes to money. If you want to make the right decisions when it comes to managing your assets, you need to know what mistakes to avoid and how to spot a trap. This is Money Crimes, a Crime House original. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin.

Every Thursday, I'll be telling you the story of a famous financial crime and giving you advice on how to avoid becoming a victim yourself. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making all of this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Money Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters.

And for ad-free access to Money Crimes plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. This episode is all about disgraced reality star Jennifer Chang. As the breakout star of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Jen brought all the glamour and glitz fans were hungry for. But when the FBI came calling, things got a lot more real than anyone ever expected.

Today, I'll tell you how Jen spent decades running a nationwide telemarketing scam, lying, scheming, and swindling hundreds of victims out of tens of millions of dollars. She was ultimately captured and prosecuted, and viewers saw it all play out in real time. ["The Real Housewives"] Most people have heard of The Real Housewives franchise, even if they've never seen a single episode. I personally haven't. It became a pop culture touchstone and internet meme goldmine, which makes sense when you

consider that the Bravo network created it. With franchises like Below Deck and Vanderpump Rules, the Bravo universe is massive, and its fans are dedicated. To be honest, it's a little cult-like, especially when it comes to the real Housewives. Millions of people devour every single episode. But in case you haven't seen the show, here's a quick rundown. Basically, the cast members are pretty much the opposite of your typical housewives. Most are wealthy women who are famous for living fabulous lives.

They go on shopping sprees, throw lavish parties, attend star-studded events, and get into dramatic screaming matches like high schoolers. It's the definition of a guilty pleasure. The whole thing started in 2006 in Orange County, California, and was such a hit that in the following years, Bravo released spinoffs in 10 major cities across the United States and one in Dubai. Places that are just as glamorous as the people living in them, like New York City, Beverly Hills, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City, Utah. When the newest addition to The Real Housewives

Family was announced in 2019, the biggest reaction was, why Utah? But it turns out that Salt Lake City is a much better fit for the series than anyone ever realized. It has the nightlife, the shopping, all the same glitz and glamour of the other major cities. Not to mention the nearby resort town of Park City, home of world-renowned skiing and the Sundance Film Festival. To top it off, it's all set in the foothills of the majestic Rocky Mountains. Draped in blankets of fresh white snow, it's definitely a stunning backdrop that gives never-ending ski vacation vibes.

But even in a beautiful place, reality can be ugly. And if anyone proves that, it's Jen Shaw. Long before she became a reality housewife, Jen Shaw was Jennifer Louis, born in October of 1973 in Salt Lake City to a large but tight knit Hawaiian and Tongan family. According to Jen, when she was just a baby, her maternal grandparents took her to Hawaii to live with them,

which is apparently common in Tongan culture. Then around the time she was six or seven, Jen's grandma got sick and was hospitalized for about a month. That's when the family decided that Jen should move back to Utah with her parents. Even though she'd been born in Utah, going from Hawaii back to Salt Lake City

was a massive culture shock for Jen. In Hawaii, Jen looked like everyone else. She fit in, she felt like she belonged, but in Utah, it was the exact opposite. Suddenly Jen knew what it felt like to be an outsider. And it didn't feel good. Jen was one of the only people of color in her entire school. When she was in kindergarten, her classmates noticed her skin was darker than theirs. But curious, innocent observations like these eventually evolved into outright bullying as

she got older. One day, Jen came home crying after some kids called her dirty for having brown skin. Jen was desperate for some positive attention from her peers. She was a pretty good dancer, so she joined the cheer and dance teams in high school. The plan seemed to work. Jen became the girl who could dance and got used to literally performing to make people like her. There was one more thing that helped her fit in. At least a little bit.

Her family might not have been white, but they were something equally as important in Utah. Mormon. The church gave Jen a sense of belonging that the rest of the world didn't. Her Mormon faith and tight-knit family got her through the hard times. But they also made things a little bit more complicated. Both Polynesian and Mormon cultures are known to have high expectations, especially for women. So, Jen's upbringing was super strict. As the oldest daughter of six children, she was expected to help with housekeeping and

take care of her siblings. On top of all that, she also had to get good grades and abide by her family's many, many rules. To make her family proud, Jen pushed herself to exceed their expectations. She was 17 when she graduated high school in 1991, but unlike the majority of her classmates who went on to study at Mormon-founded Brigham Young University,

Jen went to the University of Utah instead. It probably had a lot more to do with the proximity to home than anything else. BYU was hundreds of miles away in Provo while the University of Utah was just an hour from her parents' house. But as Jen said in a 2020 interview on the currently cringing podcast,

it might as well have been another planet. Without her parents around, it was like the rules she'd grown up with just didn't exist anymore. And when she met Sharif Shah, those rules went completely out the window. Sharif was tall, handsome, and the quarterback of the football team. When Jen saw him one day in class, she was smitten, and Sharif felt the same way. He came over and asked to sit next to her, and the rest, as they say, was history.

Well, sort of. Sharif was a gentleman, and the relationship was great. After only a year or so of dating, Sharif started talking about marriage. And then, Jen found out she was pregnant. Which would not go over so well with Jen's strict parents. Of course, she couldn't hide her pregnancy from her parents forever. By the time she came home for Christmas break in 1993, she was about six months along and showing.

As expected, her parents were not happy. Still, in August of 1994, five months after welcoming their son, Jen and Sharif got married. And after they both graduated, it was up to Jen to support their family. Sharif was trying to go to law school, but in the meantime, they still had to pay the bills. So at some point, probably in the late 90s, Jen says she got a job in marketing. By that, she seems to have meant telemarketing. I know I might be dating myself here, but for anyone who grew up with a landline, telemarketers were the worst. Nowadays, we refer to them as spam calls and our smartphones can usually filter them out.

But back when Jen was getting started, in the days before caller ID was super widespread, telemarketers called people directly at home. And going by my experience, usually in the middle of dinner. With the technology we have now, telemarketers are less of a problem. But sometimes your phone's spam filter isn't enough to stop them. They've still got tricks up their sleeves, like calling from numbers with area codes you're familiar with, hoping you'll answer. As an extra precaution, you can add your number to the Do Not Call list.

These are operated by the governments in Canada and the United States. And if that doesn't work and you still get a marketing call, you can report the business to the Federal Trade Commission. Violating the FTC's telemarketing rules comes with steep fines and even sanctions against the business. And with the volume of scamming these days, the commission is taking these complaints more seriously than ever. Whatever kind of marketing work Jen was doing, it was enough to get by until Sharif graduated law school in 2001.

His specialties were commercial litigation and personal injury, two of the highest paying gigs out there for attorneys. If Jen ever wanted to slow down and settle into life as a housewife, like a regular one, not even the fancy Bravo kind, this would have been the time to do it. Especially because in 2003, she had their second son. But Jen Shaw had bigger aspirations than that. Not only did she keep working, but by 2006 she was the director of business development at a telemarketing company called Prosper Inc.

Prosper sold executive business coaching courses, which is basically self-help for business people. There is no word on whether this company was a scam, but it got into some legal trouble nonetheless. In 2007, they were sued by an employee who alleged he had been waterboarded as a motivational exercise. If true, that is absolutely wild. There's no sign that Jen was involved in that though. And she left Prosper in 2011 to work for Thrive Corporate,

a different telemarketing company that also sold business coaching courses and work from home opportunities. There, she worked her way up to vice president of business development, alongside a guy named Stuart Smith. Remember his name, we'll get back to him later. As for Jen, she was excited to get more responsibility.

But when the day of her first board meeting came, she was told she didn't have to come. Jen was confused. Every other VP was in the meeting. Then it hit her. There were two differences between her and the other people in the room. They were white and they were men. That's when Jen realized she could work as hard as possible and still never get a seat at the table.

Being Jen Shah, she wasn't going to take it lying down. If they weren't going to include her, she'd just build a table herself, even if that table was made of lies. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BenMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas drift excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette. Download the BenMGM casino app today. BenMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly.

BenMGM.com for T-Cine, P plus to wager Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connx Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. After a lifetime of discrimination, Jen Shaw didn't want to be powerless anymore. So in 2011, when Jen was 38 years old, she decided to leave Thrive Corporate to start her own telemarketing company. And it seems like she got out just in time. In 2015, Thrive came under investigation by the FTC for deceptive business practices.

Jen was even questioned about her time spent working there, although she was never implicated in any wrongdoing. A couple years later, in 2017, Thrive settled to the tune of a $27 million dollar fine. The folks who ran the company were also permanently banned from selling business and coaching products. That might have seemed like a giant warning sign from the universe, at least to most people. One that might scare them off from attempting a scam like this themselves.

But by 2015, Jen was already three or four years into her own operation, which she started around 2012. And even though she didn't get into any trouble for anything she did at Thrive, she was definitely not doing things above board with her new venture. And she wasn't the only one. Remember her colleague I mentioned earlier, Stuart Smith? Apparently he also left Thrive, though it's not clear when, and became Jen's right-hand man. Working together, they executed a scam that made them millions.

Here's how it worked. Jen and Stewart created fake companies based in the country of Kosovo to avoid having to interact with the IRS. Those sham companies then put out internet ads, mostly in the United States, but also in Canada, asking people if they were interested in starting a business or working from home. These ads typically sold some sort of introductory product or program to help you get your business off the ground,

like setting up a website or a course about business basics. The price point was around $100, high enough to show them you're selling something serious, but not so unreasonable as to deter a buyer. Once you clicked the ad and you bought the service, your name and information were added to a lead list. These lists got sold to other sham companies with teams of salespeople. And that's where things got really ugly.

The people on the lead lists would start getting flooded with calls. The telemarketers would pressure them into buying more and more, always under the guise of quote-unquote investing in themselves and their business. Sure, this website package costs $1,000, but you need to establish your online presence. Add in the marketing course for another grand or more and you'll be unstoppable. After weeks and months of these investments and educational resources, you still aren't

seeing profits? Well it sounds like you need our premium coaching program. It's got a premium price tag, but you can put it on your credit card and pay it off slowly. Plus, you're gonna be so successful that pretty soon it's gonna sound like chump change. There was just one problem. None of the promises or products were real. The websites were busted, the courses were nonsense,

the coaching never happened. But by the time the victims realized it, they had spent a ton of money, money they couldn't afford to waste. Sounds like a pretty obvious scam, right? But believe me when I tell you that in the moment, it can be really hard to tell. Everyone likes to think they can't be duped, but the tactics these companies use are so manipulative they can trap just about anyone. The best way to keep yourself safe is to be careful about where you share your phone number.

Something as innocent as entering a contest can get you on a lead list for both legitimate and illegitimate telemarketing operations. If you do fall prey to a telemarketing scheme, you have a few options. I already mentioned that you can file a complaint with the FTC, but you can also go to the Office of Consumer Protection for the Attorney General of DC. Plus, lots of banks and credit card companies will issue refunds for fraudulent

transactions. And I promise there is no shame if you end up being duped by one of these organizations. These scams are well-oiled and effective psychological manipulation machines. But Jen's scheme was a particular brand of diabolical. The majority of her victims were elderly retirees looking for ways to supplement their fixed income. Others were unemployed and or disabled. They were often isolated and always vulnerable, whether it was because they were excited and hopeful or desperate and uninformed.

And it worked really well. Pretty soon Jen was making more than enough money to support her family, like way more. Plus her husband Sharif was making a cool six figures, first through his legal work and then as an assistant football coach at their alma mater, the University of Utah. Not only did Jen get to live the life of luxury, but she also got to play the part of a powerful businesswoman. Her family was so proud of her and her incredible success. But most importantly, they finally forgave her for what she had done in the past.

Riding high on the backs of all the innocent people she was scamming, Jen was ready for more. of all the innocent people she was scamming, Jen was ready for more, and in early 2019, she got a chance to be rich and famous. When Jen was 46, Bravo put out a casting call for a new show based in Salt Lake City. It would be the latest installment of a little franchise called, you guessed it, The Real Housewives. There was no way Jen Shaw wasn't going to be on that show. In her casting tape, she bragged about flying on a private jet and spending $50,000 a month

on clothing and jewelry. And then there was her backstory, the adversity she faced as a woman of color in Utah, and her successful businesses that made her more than just a housewife. But she wasn't the only female boss who was cast. Among the other five women, there was a jewelry designer, a tequila merchant, and the owner of a successful spa. One woman even owned a network of Pentecostal churches. Jen also wasn't the only person of color on the show,

which meant she wouldn't naturally stand out from the crowd. But it had never been hard for Jen to figure out what character she needed to play to succeed. This time, all she had to do was lean into the diva. Now that she could do. She hired a full glam team that she called the Shaw Squad that included a private fashion designer. She threw insane parties, one of which she claimed cost her a cool $80,000. And like every good Bravo housewife, she got into huge fights with basically every other cast member.

Jen was a producer's dream. And when the show aired in the fall of 2020, she was a pop culture lightning rod. Whether you loved her or hated her, it was Jen's antics that got people to tune into the next episode. But there was something else about Jen that set her apart from the others. No one could really figure out

where she was getting all of her money. Sure, her husband was well paid by the university. He made almost half a million dollars in 2020 from football coaching. But that's not drop 50 grand a month on luxury items rich. So Jen had to be the real breadwinner. But how? The rest of the cast were happy to use the show as a platform to promote their skincare lines and tequila brands. But Jen played things a lot closer to the

vest. The quick answer was always that she worked in marketing. If anyone followed up, she'd say something about algorithms and ad placements. For a while, it was a total mystery which made viewers all the more intrigued. But this was reality TV. They weren't going to have to wait long for the truth to come out, because Jen's downfall had already begun. She just didn't know it yet. The first season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City had barely finished airing before filming started for season two.

Bravo had a major hit on their hands, largely thanks to the breakout star, 47-year-old Jen Shaw. In March of 2021, Jen and the other women were getting ready to film a group trip. These outings are basically a way to get the entire cast together in one spot for a few days, drink a lot, and hopefully start drama that will fuel the rest of the season. And boy was Jen about to deliver, just not in the way that anyone expected. Sitting in the party bus, mic'd up, and cameras rolling, Jen got an upsetting phone call. After she hung up, Jen suddenly asked the producers to take off her mic pack.

She told the other women that she wouldn't be able to go on the trip with them. Her story at the time was that her husband, Coach Shaw, was in the hospital and possibly needed surgery. That was a lie. Moments after Jen left, armed federal officers showed up on set asking to see her. Obviously, everyone was super confused. One of the women even thought that Jen might have been pranking them. But this was very real. And it had been a long time coming. See, Jen's downfall had actually started five years earlier,

in January of 2016, when a guy in New York City got arrested for selling drugs. Except he wasn't just a drug dealer. It turned out he was involved in an elaborate network of telemarketing scams. As investigators learned more, they realized that this was big. As they made more arrests,

they realized the operation spanned multiple states. And when you start crossing state lines, the FBI gets involved. Between 2016 and 2021, investigators continue to make arrests. Each one seemed to turn up another operation in another state. To try and save their own skins, each new suspect would give up the names of the people they were working for.

As perps turned to witnesses, authorities made their way up the pyramid and found Jen Shaw and Stuart Smith at the very top. If you can believe it, Stuart or Stu as Jen called him was also on The Real Housewives. But not as Jen's partner in crime. She made it seem like he was a member of the Shaw Squad. They told people he was her assistant, and he seemed to do things assistants did, like drive her around and hold her purse, but it felt like a very strange gig for a middle-aged man. So viewers were shocked,

but also not that shocked, to learn that Stewart was less her assistant and more her lieutenant. There's even a scene where Jen feeds him a banana while he's typing away on the computer, saying I'll feed you while you make me money. In hindsight, it's kind of wild to think that they were just straight up running a scam on national TV. Law enforcement may have narrowly missed Jen on that party bus, but it didn't take long to locate her. In fact, it all happened so fast, she was still fully glammed up

when she went before a judge to hear her formal charges. Which came in handy because once the press caught wind of what was happening, there were more than just Bravo cameras following her every move. On March 30th, 2021, Jen and Stewart were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. To put it simply, wire fraud is basically any kind of fraud that involves phones or the internet. In Jen and Stewart's case,

that fraud involved scamming people out of money with fake products. But of course, that ill-gotten money has to be kept somewhere. That's where the money laundering charge came in. Essentially, money laundering charge came in. Essentially, money laundering is when you use a cash-heavy business, like say a laundromat, to process funds that you've gotten illegally. To stay in the realm of TV, it's like the car wash that Walter White used to hide his meth operation in Breaking Bad, or the fake resort in Ozark that cleaned money for the drug cartel.

Which was why Jen looked like she ran so many companies. None of them were real. They just allegedly helped her clean up the dirty money. If convicted, Jen was looking to up to 50 years behind bars. You might think that someone facing such serious consequences would lay low. But in classic Jen Shaw fashion, she went on the offensive. Not only did she continue to film Real Housewives, she loudly and proudly declared her innocence every chance she got. Her tagline in the credits for Season 3 was, the only thing I'm guilty of is being shamazing.

She even sold merch that said, free Jen Shah. But despite her bravado, Jen had to see the writing was on the wall. And that meant resorting to a tried and true reality TV strategy. Throwing your best friend under the bus. Before long, Jen was telling classmates that Stewart was the one who had gotten her into trouble. It was almost like she was laying the groundwork for her legal defense on camera. But the government had a mountain of evidence against her

as tall as the Rockies, evidence they almost certainly used to help flip Stewart. See, he was a pretty big get in terms of the telemarketing scams hierarchy, but the government really wanted to land the biggest fish, and that was Jen. If Stewart wanted to reduce his sentence even by a few years, his best bet was giving up everything he knew about her. Which was probably why, in November of 2021, Stewart changed his plea to guilty and began cooperating with the government.

And with that, the writing was on the wall for Jen. In July of 2022, after months of shouting her innocence at the cameras, Jen changed her plea to guilty in exchange for dropping the money laundering charge. She was sentenced to six and a half years in prison, which she is currently serving. With the change in plea, the state's case against Jen was released to the public and it was really something.

There was around a decade's worth of emails and text messages between Jen and her underlings that clearly showed she was the one in charge. The worst part, at least for Jen, was that the government also called her out for owning fake designer clothes and bags. Most of her jewelry was borrowed or leased, along with the fancy cars she drove around in. In fact, even the $7.4 million Shah Chalet was a rental.

In the end, Jen Shah wasn't shamazing. She was a complete sham. Like her closet full of knock-off bags, she looked good from a distance. She started from humble beginnings and overcame real adversity. But in order to do it, she took advantage of some of society's most vulnerable members. And for a while, it really seemed to work. But just when it started to seem like Jen was untouchable, it all came crashing down around her. And the cameras were there to capture every moment. ["Dreams of a New World"]

["Dreams of a New World"] Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Come back next time as I take you through another wild story and offer you some advice along the way. Money Crimes is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios. Join me every Thursday for a new episode. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at CrimeHouse on TikTok and on Instagram. Don't forget to rate,

review and follow Money Crimes wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Your feedback truly makes all the difference. And for ad free and early access to Money Crimes plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple podcasts. Money Crimes is hosted by me, Nicole Lapin, and is a CrimeHouse original powered by PAVE Studios. It is executive produced by Max Cutler. Apple podcasts.