ENCORE: Desperate Housewife 43:37

We recently covered the epic saga involving Erika Jayne and her husband, Tom Girardi. I love Erika Jayne as much as a Next Housewives fan, but I have something to confess. There's

There's another real housewife whose story I can't stop thinking about. And unlike Erika Jayne, she's definitely a scammer. She's currently about seven months into her five and a half year prison sentence at a minimum security federal prison in Bryan, Texas. It's actually the same place where Elizabeth Holmes is now serving her time. And you know who I'm talking about, Sachi. Ooh, this sounds shamazing.

Yes, Jen Shaw. And it seems like Jen is doing well. She's reportedly staging a play called The Real Housewives of Brian and is even teaching some of the crew how to read and write. It's tragic we might never get to see this play, but we are going to re-air our episode about Jen Shaw. It originally aired last summer and it's still one of our favorites. Please enjoy.

Sarah. Hey, Sachi. One thing that we have in common is that we both love the real housewives. I don't have a super high trash tolerance, but the housewives really, it's perfect for me. Well,

Well, Sarah, since you know what it's like to be a housewife fan, you know that when you watch the show, even though there are these people who are like deeply flawed, often not very likable, you still end up kind of rooting for them in a weird way. Yeah, I think it's because they live in a different reality. So the measure of morality is a bit different because they don't live in the normal world. Right. Rules don't apply. Right.

So this brings me to my big question for this episode. What would a housewife have to do to lose your sympathy for good?

I mean, the bar's pretty high. Simultaneously high and low. Yeah, yeah. Well, what if a housewife was truly one of the most compulsively watchable people on the planet, but she also maybe ripped off a bunch of super vulnerable people? I mean, are they all kind of scamfluencers? Ooh, not like this, Hags. Not like this.

It's March 30th, 2021. It's a bright spring morning in Salt Lake City, Utah. The snow dots the slopes, and for the stars of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, it's showtime. Filming has already started on season two, and the ladies are headed to Vail, Colorado for a ski getaway. And with the crew hovering around them, Jen Shaw joins cast members Heather Gay, Lisa Barlow, and Whitney Rose as they board a party bus.

It's parked in a strip mall outside of Heather's Beauty Lab and Laser Spa. And Jen is impossible to miss in this scene. She's 47 years old, and she's wearing her long, dark hair in box braids. She also has on a fox fur vest and chunky gold and silver bracelets. And to top it all off, Sarah, she's in leopard print high-heeled boots. It's very Jen Shaw, very Real Housewives. ♪

Jen takes a seat with the others who look casual by comparison, and she's ready to unwind. But this will not be the relaxing vacation she had imagined. Because before they even leave the strip mall, Jen gets a phone call and her eyes go wide. She looks terrified. She hustles off the bus and into the passenger seat of a Ford pickup.

12 minutes later, cops in Homeland Security jackets swarm the bus. Of course, the Bravo cameras keep rolling, and Whitney wonders if Jen is playing some kind of prank on them. The cops do look pretty hot, so she wonders if maybe they're strippers. In disbelief, the housewives scroll through headlines on their phones, like this one from TMZ in big, bold, screaming letters that said...

Jen Shah arrested for telemarketing scheme allegedly targeted old folks. And reality starts to dawn on the group still in the bus. Jen has been arrested for real. And she's been charged with federal crimes. Oof. That is, that's something else. Yeah, it's no joke. It's some of the most serious legal trouble that any of the Real Housewives have ever gotten into. But the other ladies are having trouble understanding. ♪

Like, how is Jen involved? What could she have done to get Homeland Security involved? As the bus makes its way to Vail, the housewives obsess over what the hell just happened. But what they don't know is that Jen's mysterious job

Well, it isn't as harmless as she makes it out to be. It's much bigger, much worse. And Jen's luxurious lifestyle may be fun to watch, but it's also all just smoke and mirrors. Prosecutors allege that her gaudy lifestyle is covering up a massive scheme. And it's all about to be blown wide open. All on reality TV in a way we've never seen before. From Wondery, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And this is Scamfluencers.

Jen Shah's story isn't just rags to riches Bravo catnip. Her path is paved with extremely shady bosses, telemarketing hell, and an even bigger court paper trail. And Jen being Jen, it also includes one big-ass mansion in the snow. But now this drama queen is getting her own reality check.

I've been watching Real Housewives from the beginning, and I thought I knew everything there was to know about her. I was wrong. I was so wrong. Jen's story isn't just about gratuitous wealth. It's about fraud, elder abuse, and somehow waterboarding? Wait, what? This is Desperate Housewife.

All right, I want to start with a bit of an explainer. Sarah, how would you break down the Real Housewives cinematic universe? Thank you for asking. So it's a reality TV franchise and it's on Bravo. Each show follows a group of friends, which is a term I'm using very lightly. It just seems to be women who are similarly wealthy. They all live in the same city and they just do rich lady shit. Correct. That's a perfect encapsulation of this freak show that you and I cannot stop watching. I can't stop. Can't stop. But Sarah...

How much of it do you think is real? I don't think a lot of it is really real. I do think so much of it is manufactured by producers who kind of latch on to like a nugget of a conflict and kind of make them talk about it. I mean, there are some real dramatic things that happen that are real, like Taylor Armstrong's abusive marriage that was obviously not staged. Yeah. Any Bravo-holic knows that there is some real dark shit that does make it on the show. Yeah.

But make no mistake, the housewives are also playing characters. Imagine you're a producer at Bravo. It's 2019. You're reviewing the audition tapes for a new Real Housewives installment in Salt Lake City. And you're looking for the perfect local housewife, rich, outrageous, and willing to literally fight people. And this time, the producers are keeping an eye towards diversity. The

The diversity issue is something that the franchise has been knocked for in the past. And that is when the audition tape of a lifetime crosses your desk. Jen Shaw, I'm 28 years old, aka 45. And in her audition tape, Jen says that she is a self-made marketing queen. She very casually mentions that she spends about $50,000 a month. And that is, by the way, $600,000 a year.

And as she speaks, the tape cuts to a photo of her family in front of a private jet. She travels in style, obviously. And Jen wants you to know, listen, she didn't get her wealth handed to her. She works hard and she plays even harder. And she doesn't have time for slackers. I relate better with females that work. The ones that just sit at home and don't do anything. I don't play well with girls like that.

Jen is totally unique in the Real Housewives universe. She's Tongan and Hawaiian with Polynesian heritage. Yeah, and also she is the first Muslim Real Housewife. Well, to the casting directors, she's a sure bet. They sign her up. But the Real Housewives is a commitment. Filming for a season takes place over 14 weeks and the women shoot six days a week.

For the contract, crews are allowed access to any and all aspects of their lives. The production team explicitly warns them beforehand. If you have any skeletons in your closet, plan on that shit coming out. But if Jen has any compromising secrets, she shows no hesitation when she signs on.

Jen makes an immediate impression on the show. She shrieks over things that are petty, even by Real Housewives standards. She has a season-long beef with Mary Cosby, a Pentecostal church leader married to her step-grandfather, because she said that Jen smelled like hospital. I don't even have time to unpack that one. You know what? I do think Jen was right to go after Mary for that.

The one thing about Jen is that when she's a little bit right, it explodes like a volcano and it becomes one of the craziest things you've ever seen. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what makes Jen such a good real housewife. But we've only scratched the surface with her. Jen has been facing battles her whole life. The fight to get here atop her reality TV throne has not been easy. And her life story shows that she should not be underestimated.

It's 1980. Jen Shah is seven years old. Back then, she's known by her birth name, Jennifer Louie. She's just moved with her family to Salt Lake City from Hawaii, where she was born. And she's not Muslim at this point. She's Mormon. And she's a brown girl in predominantly white Utah. So she's an outsider.

One afternoon, she comes home from school and her aunt, Lehua Vincent, notices that Jen's skin is bright red. Lehua asks her what's up. And here's what Jen tells her aunt in the Hulu documentary, The Housewife and the Shah Shocker. She said, I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and it won't come off. And I said, we're talking about what won't come off? And she said, the kids at school are calling me dirty. Oh, that is really sad. It is sad.

Years later, at the University of Utah in the 90s, she meets another outsider, Sharif Shah. He plays for the college football team. He's Black, Muslim, and unlike anyone she's ever met. He asks Jen out, and she agrees on one condition. She's bringing her cousins with her, and he says, sure. He takes them all out to dinner, and he totally charms them.

Jen and Sharif fall head over heels in love. And Sharif broadens Jen's view of the world. He tells her that the Mormon church didn't even allow Black members into its priesthood until 1978. And that doesn't sit right with Jen. She starts to question the faith she was raised in. Yeah, and she does convert to Islam, I believe, sometime after that because she mentions it on the show many times. Yeah. And then in 1993, she and Sharif face their first big snag.

Sharif suffers a neck injury that ends his football playing career. After graduation, he decides to go to law school. In 1994, Jen and Sharif get married, and their first son, Sharif Shah Jr., is born that same year. For Bravo viewers, he's the strapping one who's always telling his mom to just relax.

And although Jen's always dreamed of being a newscaster, it's a fiercely competitive job, which pays peanuts. Now she's got to be the breadwinner for her family. So Jen enters Salt Lake City's cutthroat corporate world, determined to climb the ladder and make her mark in one of the least respected professions around, telemarketing.

Jen's first big gig is in brand management for Franklin Covey. It's a company that sells $66 planners and coaching services based on the seven habits of highly effective people.

Sarah, my dad gave me a copy of that book when I was 12. Have you read it? I've heard of it. It sounds culty, so I've never read it. And it's scary that you got that when you were 12. Yeah, I mean, I didn't read it when I was 12. At least I knew not to. But I do know that it's one of the best-selling self-help books of all time. And it's kind of a secular version of some major Mormon principles. It's all about being an upstanding citizen. It's all about being a good person.

So Jen works at FranklinCovey for about seven years, and then she leaves to join another company that sells business advice, Prosper, Inc.,

Prosper runs a call center that contacts people looking to start a business out of their home. It offers packages to help with internet marketing, building revenue streams, you know, the usual stuff. And Jen becomes Prosper's director of business development. And this lands her on a notable women in business list by a local publication, Utah Valley 360. Here's a photo of her from that story in 2008. What do you think? I

I mean, of course, this photo was taken a very long time ago, but her style is completely different. She's wearing a two-piece skirt and jacket. She just looks so toned down. Like, I don't think at this point she has had any work done. I mean, Jen has admitted to getting some cosmetic work done. Fillers, Botox, fixing a broken nose, which is a real staple housewife excuse for getting a nose job.

And obviously there are some insulting comments about it on TikTok, which rude. Go let the girl do whatever she wants to her head as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, you know? But it turns out that Prosper may have actually been hurting people.

In 2008, an employee sues the company after a manager allegedly waterboarded him. That's literal torture. Yep. In the lawsuit, a former employee claims that a manager at Prosper waterboarded him as a part of a demonstration. The manager told employees that they should work as hard to sell as this guy was working to breathe. Oh my God. Yeah. What? What?

Well, the reason why this is relevant is because Prosper settles and then Jen decides to stay with the company. But then in 2011, she becomes vice president of business development at another coaching firm, Thrive Learning. And again, it uses call centers full of salespeople to sell its services.

Soon, Thrive Learning lands in its own legal mess. The Federal Trade Commission starts snooping around, and they even have Jen sit for a deposition. And that's because things at Thrive Learning, well, they're not exactly on the up and up. Actually, things are incredibly suspicious. The FTC is about to uncover some business dealings that will cast Jen's corporate savvy into a far more nefarious light.

In 2012, Jen's feeling ready to strike out on her own. Well, almost on her own. She actually starts her own business with a colleague from Thrive Learning. Someone who may be familiar to you, Sarah, Stuart Smith. Oh my God.

Okay, Stuart is one of Jen's eight assistants and he was the number one. Yes. He was her driver, truly an absolute corporate cuck. Yes, he was present for every moment of that show where she needed anything. He looked like someone who served Jen and then later in the day went into a pod.

Well, Stewart joins her, allegedly, in starting a telemarketing company called Mastery Pro. Oh, yeah, I would totally trust that. Mastery Pro? It's in the name. Meanwhile, the feds are cracking down on Jen and Stewart's former employer, Thrive Learning. ♪

In 2017, the FTC files a complaint accusing Thrive Learning of conning thousands of Americans. According to the FTC's complaint, Thrive Learning used internet ads to get names and phone numbers of people who wanted to launch businesses. And then telemarketers would call those people and sell them bogus business management packages. And then they upsold useless packages to those same customers over and over again. The FTC alleges that Thrive Learning extracted millions from its victims.

And meanwhile, those victims were left in a mountain of debt with nothing to show for their businesses. Thrive Learning settles the charges for $27 million. Do we know if Jen and Stuart basically just kind of replicated this business model? Yeah, but far from being spooked by the FTC's gigantic fine, Jen doubles down on her telemarketing scheme.

In 2017, she allegedly starts running day-to-day operations at a Manhattan-based sales floor that sells bogus business opportunity products. Finally, Jen is the one calling the shots. Girl boss alert. But Jen doesn't stop at building her own marketing business. She's dreaming big. So she starts pursuing an even bigger opportunity. It's one that'll give her a national profile and draw all kinds of attention. For better or for worse. ♪

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Just use the code SCAMPOD. That's happymammoth.com, M-A-M-M-O-T-H, with the code SCAMPOD to get 15% off your entire first order. Okay, Sarah, you've seen Jen's audition tape, so you already know she's immediately cast on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. So let's fast forward to December 2019.

It's the dead of winter and production has just started for season one. Jen's already made a splash. She's flaunting all of her fur coats, her jewelry and her Porsche. And she decides to throw a birthday party for fellow housewife Meredith Marks. She says it'll just be a small girls gathering. Oh, I remember what this party was like. It was anything but. And honestly, I totally forgot it was even for Meredith's birthday until you said that.

Well, this party, it cost a very cool 80 grand. Super casual, normal shit. Jen hosts the event at her home, which she calls the Shaski Chalet. It's a 9,000 square foot fortress planted in snowy hills. Five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, stone detailing, rich dark wood everywhere. It's

It's actually pretty nice. I would stay there and gladly never go outside again. No, and I don't think anyone was actually skiing while they were there. Well, that's not why I want to go either. Jen has completely decked the place out for Meredith's birthday. There's a step and repeat photo area branded with Jen's name. Even though, again, this is Meredith's birthday party. Classic Jen, truly unhinged. Shirtless Tongan dancers perform and no one really knows why. Here's what Jen says about it on the show.

Tongue-in dancers really have nothing to do with Meredith. They have everything to do with me. And somehow, Jen manages to be late to the party she's throwing for someone else in her own house. Here's Meredith on the show. Yes, it's my birthday, but the reality of it is I knew this wasn't a party for me. But behind the display of excess and self-worship, Jen is hiding something. Something the housewives don't suspect. Something even Bravo doesn't know.

That chalet, it's a rental. So is her jewelry and the fur coats and the Porsche, according to a former employee. It's all been staged. I don't begrudge anyone a rental, but it'll come out later in court that Jen has no significant assets whatsoever to her name. Her whole life runs on cash because with cash, it's easier to avoid federal reporting requirements on high value transactions. Oh,

Oh, and Jen's also moved part of her telemarketing business to Kosovo to dodge law enforcement. And she uses encrypted messaging apps to talk to her co-scammers. She's going to great lengths to keep her financial reality under wraps. Because Jen might have created her own empire, but it's built on the same shaky foundation of her past workplaces with the same alleged illegal practices. And her meant-for-reality TV facade is about to go down like an avalanche.

Look, Sarah, Jen cannot be this fabulous all on her own. So everywhere she goes, Jen has an entourage of assistants trailing behind. And she calls them the Shaw Squad.

I have no idea what any of them do. Are they makeup artists or digital marketing professionals? No one really knows. It's not crazy for housewives to have glam squads and like weird hanger honors, but there was something off about this. Yeah. And Jen never really makes it clear on the show what her job is or what Stu and the other assistants do.

There's actually a scene where Stuart is typing away at a laptop and he talks about what's happening with their business. This account is going good. The infomercial lead is doing really, really well.

Stuart talking about the leads is the closest that they get to showing their cards on the show. And Jen's apparently pretty happy. So she feeds Stuart a banana. She literally peels the banana and shoves it into his mouth. It is so weird. And then she tells Stu, I feed you while you work, while you make me money, I feed you. Okay. He honestly just looks like such a normal, regular guy who would never know anyone like Jen Schott.

I am so curious. How did Stu get to this point? Yeah. Well, Stuart went to Brigham Young University and after graduating, he works at Costco. And then he runs his own landscape nursery. Somehow, he ends up at Thrive Learning as an account manager. When Jen left to start her own company, she took Stu with her. And apparently, Thrive Learning's business plan. And that's not all Jen may have picked up from a previous employer.

Remember the alleged waterboarding at Prosper? Imagine I was like, no, I actually forgot about that. Yeah. Well, listen, Jen doesn't waterboard anyone, at least that we know of, but she does verbally attack her employees. Listen to this footage that was leaked on social media. And you can stop fucking smiling, bitch, and being a fucking bitch. Because you are. Fucking don't have a fucking attitude with me. This is our fucking order to reunion this week. Shut the fuck up.

Okay, okay. And she threatens to assault her designer. Okay, come in here because I'm like ready to fucking, we're gonna put on boxing gloves and I'm gonna beat the shit out of you in like two seconds.

So that designer quit. He literally moved back to Hawaii to recover from the experience of working for Jen. And good thing that he did. Holy shit, this is crazy. Yeah, it's pretty bad. But in front of the cameras, Jen is still riding high. She's expanded beyond her marketing companies into her own lifestyle brand. Fashion, skincare, lash lines, real housewife shit, you know? But behind the scenes, Jen is unraveling. She's high strung, easily triggered, and she's got a lot of stuff going on.

But that is nothing compared to the anxiety her customers are feeling. The people on the other side of Jen's business marketing offers. And their story is dark and damning. It's the summer of 2020. COVID-19 is literally in the air. Marie Walker, a preschool teacher based in Georgia, is struggling to find work.

Marie is in her 60s. She's a Black woman who dresses sharp and wears flashy gold jewelry. And she's been trying for any gig, even substitute teaching. But lockdowns have disrupted everything. So she decides to start her own health and beauty business. While browsing online, Marie sees an ad that promises to help build her home-based business.

She's not the most internet savvy, so she could use a hand here. So she clicks, and she looks at a social media boost package. It's from a company called Mastery Pro. It costs $1,000, and she buys it.

She figures you got to spend money to make money, you know? What Marie doesn't know is that the masterminds behind Mastery Pro are allegedly Jen Shah and Stuart Smith. And after clicking on the initial ad and providing some basic information like a phone number, Marie is inundated with telemarketing calls from various companies.

Poor Marie. That is hell. Yeah. So here's what happens, allegedly. Marie clicks on the ad and fills out some information. Her name, phone number, et cetera. And then that information is given to dozens of other companies with whole floors of salespeople who just start hitting Marie up. They want to sell her various nonsense business packages like coaching and more social media shit. And they just will not stop calling Marie.

And before long, Marie spends 18 grand on offers to make her new beauty business, well, thrive. Oh my God, $18,000 during COVID? Yeah, I mean, $18,000 from a teacher. And after paying all that dough, there's no website and her business, it's going nowhere. ♪

Here she is in the Hulu documentary explaining that she couldn't reach anybody from the telemarketers to help. My head was really spinning there. I said, oh, this is just a scam. ♪

It's devastating for Marie, but she will not take it lying down. When she realizes that she's been had, Marie alerts her credit card companies, her bank, the police, and the FTC. What she doesn't know? The feds have already been casting their nets wide for telemarketing fraudsters. And Jen might as well be wearing a huge target on her back.

All this time, Real Housewives fans still know nothing about Jen's scam, but they do know that something is up. They're skeptical about her job, and all they hear is marketing. But like, how can she afford to spend 50 grand a month on boots and bags and Tongan dancers when she just works in marketing? And as you might remember, fans get their chance to question Jen during the season one reunion. It airs February 2021.

the ladies of salt lake city sit on a soundstage made to look like a cozy winter wonderland fake snow christmas trees bundles of wood real cute andy cohen bravo super producer and celebrity in his own right is peppy as ever he's wearing a slim fit blue suit and a striped pink tie and andy is ready to grill these women with hard-hitting questions from the fans

All done with a loving, radiant, TV-ready smile, of course. Andy asks Jen a question from a viewer. Why do you need four assistants? And specifically, Brendan wants you to break down what each of them do for you outside of clapping for your fabulous outfits and driving you around. I need a lot of help. Okay. You know, they all do different things. I mean, I run...

A lot of different companies and businesses, and a lot of them have different roles in the companies. And he presses her on it. My background is in direct response marketing for about 20 years. So our company does, you know, advertising. We have a platform that helps people acquire customers. So when you're shopping online or on the Internet and something pops, we have the algorithm behind advertising.

why you're getting served that ad. Yeah, I mean, this doesn't really help clarify anything. She is totally unprepared to answer a pretty basic question about her business. Okay, so this was definitely the first and only time I've heard a clear indication that there is like a business model here for what she does, but it still is so vague. And it's enough of a response to show that she kind of knows what she's talking about. And I feel like it was enough to really shut people up for a bit. Yeah.

But even in her articulation of how the business works, she's getting increasingly defensive. She appears on Access Hollywood where she's again asked to explain herself. And she's just flummoxed. This part is not great, Sarah. She accuses the people questioning her of being racist. And I think part of it is like here in Utah, the ladies are like, oh my gosh, how does the brown girl and the black husband have all this money?

Because that's, you know what I mean? They're like, that's weird. No, it's not weird. Listen, Jen has some valid points, but then so do the questioners. The picture hasn't quite come into focus. She's definitely getting more criticism than her white counterparts, but something is off here. And all the buzzwords and rented mansions can't delay the hard reality that's about to come crashing down on Jen. And thankfully, the cameras will be rolling. ♪

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It's March 30th, 2021, the day of Jen Shah's arrest. Jen started the day on the party bus to Vail with all the other housewives, but now she's speeding away in a Ford pickup. But then she's pulled over, and here's how she'll later describe it to Heather on the show. We started driving home, and a white minivan pulls up and a black SUV. So then I'm thinking, I'm being kidnapped. ♪

And then, like, wait, can I see your identification? And he's like, we're here from New York. We just want to talk to you, and we're here to arrest you. So now Jen is freaking out, and she has good reason to worry. At that moment, a SWAT team is descending on her mansion, armed with what Jen later describes as AR-15 rifles. Her teenage son Omar is there, and FBI agents hold him at gunpoint. The whole arrest is just completely over the top.

Okay, here's one thing that really bothered me about the whole thing. That footage was in the show and it was just so cruel because it's not like Jen was this violent criminal. Like, why go to her house with machine guns, basically, you know? Yeah. And then after arresting her, the authorities take Jen to a nearby detainment center. And who does she come across in the very same building? When I walked in, that's when I saw Stuart was there.

And I was like, what the hell is going on? Stuart looked at me and was like, I'm sorry. Okay, what was Stu apologizing for? I don't know, maybe the whole situation? The bad lighting? I don't know, but it seems fitting. Because these two ride or dies were just on top of the world, gleefully raking in cash. And now they're at their lowest. And we will see just how low that is.

Jen and Stuart are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. They both plead not guilty. Prosecutors allege that not only did Jen know what she was doing, but that she was the puppet master, selling leads and then directing her employees on how to scam victims and then taking a cut.

The government alleges that she preyed on vulnerable, often elderly working class people, stealing from them to enrich herself and then parading the spoils on reality TV. That is true.

Truly messed up considering that like she was once working class, like she didn't grow up rich or anything. Yeah, this is not a Robin Hood situation. And Jen's arrest is actually part of a bigger federal crackdown. The investigation into her and Stu actually began five years earlier, all the way back in January 2016. The feds called it Operation Double Down. Okay, so what finally tipped them off?

So Operation Double Down started with a drug smuggling arrest of a man named Arash Khatabji. Khatabji and 14 other people were indicted in 2017 in connection with a telemarketing scam. They all pleaded guilty, but it didn't end there. The investigation led the feds to another telemarketing company in New Jersey, and this one was run by a guy named Anthony Chidi. In 2017,

In November 2019, federal prosecutors indicted Chidi and nine other people, charging them with participating in a nationwide telemarketing scheme. And that's the case that brings the feds to Jen Shah. Chidi's telemarketers allegedly bought leads, which is the contact information for potential victims, from a company owned by Jen Shah and Stuart Smith. ♪

Okay, let's say Marie Walker, the teacher, enters her name and phone number on a marketing website. So that means Jen Shaw's company gets her information. Then Jen's company sells Marie's information to this guy Chidi's company, and they call Marie and sell her all that nonsense. Is that what happened? Yeah, that's the gist of it, according to prosecutors.

That's a lot of steps. It's a lot of steps. And the complaint alleges that Jen, Stu, and Chidi coordinated to contact potential victims and to fight refund requests from people who realized they were getting scammed. So it wasn't just selling people's information, like they were trying to also get them to buy these things because they would fight these refunds. Yeah, they were getting at it at all angles. But where this might sink anyone else's career, Jen's already working on her own spin.

How can she make the scandal work in her favor, for her own gain? Rather than cower, within days of the arrest, she's back to filming for The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 2. She's ready to argue her case in front of Bravo's cameras. ♪

Jen might be down, but she's not out. After her arrest, she goes on the defensive, claiming to anyone who will listen that she's been wrongly accused. In her narrative, she's the ultimate victim. And she's hammering that narrative on the show, starting with the premiere of her new tagline when season two debuts in September 2021, six months after her arrest. That's the bit she says in the intro to every episode. The only thing I'm guilty of is being shaw-mazing. Yeah.

You know, from a legal perspective, this seems kind of like a train wreck. Like, how is she even allowed on the show with all this extremely damning evidence? She does say her legal team is not happy about it. And she has some interesting ideas for how to defend herself. Do we need to add Kim Kardashian to our legal team? Yes.

Yeah, don't do that. So yeah, the whole thing is playing out on Real Housewives. And it puts the other cast members in a really weird position. None of them want to be seen as a scammer or a scammer associate, but a lot of them have plenty to say. Here's Meredith first hearing the news of Jen's arrest. Honestly, I'm not surprised by this.

The housewives are obviously reevaluating Jen's habits in light of everything they now know. Paying in cash in and of itself is nothing. It just could be a red flag to other stuff. Yes, it's weird for someone to always be paying in cash for something unless they are someone who gets paid in tips, you know? But even outside of the world of the housewives, Jen is carrying on like she's not worried.

Like in August of 2021, she saunters into Manhattan federal court for a hearing in all of her finery. Heels, a belt covered with more than 60 pearls and a ridiculous Seinfeld style ruffled white pirate shirt.

Outside the courthouse, a reporter asks her to name her favorite thing about New York City. Do you want to read her response? The food. Honestly, it reminds me of the time that Martha Stewart was in prison and she was asked what she missed the most and she just said, lemons. Like, I just feel like rich people's brains are not built like ours.

But anyway, in October, she gets paid to appear at the Hustler Strip Club in New York. According to New York Post's page six, Jen signs autographs and gets on stage with the porn star Alexis Monroe. And in exchange for a night of partying, she's reportedly paid tens of thousands of dollars. But then in November 2021, Jen's hit by a major blow.

Stu changes his plea to guilty. And that means that all 13 co-conspirators in the Operation Double Down Fraud case have pleaded guilty except Jen. And in his plea, Stu cops to the telemarketing scam, which according to the indictment was a wide-ranging nationwide fraud dating back to 2012. Stu admits to selling bogus services through his telemarketing work. And he says that Mastery Pro was a shell company designed to hide what was really going on.

you'll have to pay unspecified restitution to victims in addition to whatever prison sentence he might get. And he doesn't explicitly name Jen, but she was his boss. In February 2022, Jen's lawyers filed to exclude any Real Housewives clips in the trial against her, arguing that they would be hearsay.

It's essentially the same argument that Kardashians used successfully, mind you, in their recent legal showdown with Blac Chyna. Yeah, okay, I do understand that because the argument here is that the judge would have to watch every minute of footage shot in the whole series to get the real stories because the show is edited. Yeah, but in the court of public opinion, opinions are mixed. Besides other housewives throwing shade, Bravo kind of goes along with Jen's charade of acting like everything's normal.

Beyond the arrest scene, Salt Lake City season two barely touches the federal charges. And obviously viewers notice. In March 2022, celebrity hairstylist Justin Anderson asks his Instagram followers why Jen is being treated with kid gloves. Jen herself chimes in. Do you want to read what Jen writes in Justin's comments? I'm innocent dot dot dot and look forward to trial so you along with everyone else can see the truth.

And then she ends up with a vibrating pink heart emoji. And Jen also takes to Instagram to throw some verbal wine back at the other housewives, saying that they have zero compassion for her and her family. And she writes, I hope the ladies each learn a valuable lesson from this and stop judging others.

But then, on July 11th, 2022, just days before her trial is set to begin, Jen changes her tune. She takes a plea deal. Under the terms of the deal, Jen agrees to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In exchange, prosecutors drop the conspiracy to commit money laundering charge. The prosecutors will ask for a sentence between 11 and 14 years and $9.5 million in restitution.

As of this recording, Jen's sentencing is scheduled for this fall. When I heard that news, I was truly shocked. Like, she had maintained innocence for so long, and then to come out and be like, yep, it was me. Yeah, she really flipped. Now, Jen is supposed to pay millions back to her victims, but who knows if that'll happen. Marie Walker, the teacher, says that she did eventually get about $8,000 back in credit card charges from the fraud scheme. But the rest?

It's just gone. Here's what she would say to her scammers. Marie is still waiting for answers and for justice.

So that's it. Jen Shah is going to Shah shank. Get it? That is so crazy. Like a part of me really thought she was not going to go to jail. The other thing about it is that there is something to be said about Bravo. At this point, they're like casting from court documents, right? And it's also taught because when you watch the show, you end up having empathy for them because they're people and you see their families and like,

Her scenes with Sharif are so affecting because he really does seem to like her. Yeah, it's affecting because this whole thing with these shows is that you kind of see them as like not really human. And then something crazy happens with them and you're like, oh gosh, I guess these are people. And even though Jen, you know, there's all this damning evidence against her. I'm just kind of like...

It really sucks that she has a family that's going to be affected by this. And also, a huge thing about Jen Shaw is that she...

She spent a lot of money supporting various family members. For better or for worse, you know, regardless of where that money came from, these people ended up relying on her in some way. Yeah. It's really complicated to watch it because you're like, oh, that's nice. And then you think about like Marie gave 18 grand to somebody who was trying to steal it from her. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think that if you were like looking for like help with your social media or with your website that you would have fallen for like a Jen Shah marketing scam? Yeah, I think it's very easy to fall for something like that. Again, like if you talk to anyone who has a small business and they need to advertise it, like there,

There are whole agencies that are like, oh, we'll get your product, this many ads, and we'll use these keywords because it is a very complicated, weird game system, like the whole world of e-commerce, you know, which is its own scam. Yeah, I think I would fall for it too, unfortunately. Yeah, I mean, especially someone like Marie, who's starting a business, doesn't really know how e-commerce works. You see something that gives you a whole package of like,

you don't have to worry about that focus on your product. We're going to push that out there for you. Listen, if a real housewife comes to you and is like, I'm going to help you with your business. No, no, they will not. That is a lie. That is untrue. No, they cannot. And you should go. Never follow a real housewife.

to a second location. Here's the thing, Jen Shaw was a good time and that's why they kept her around. It's true, she's really fun. But you know, people who are fun can be scammers too. Just look at us.

This is Desperate Housewife. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Hulu's The Housewife and The Shaw Shocker, The New York Post's Page Six, and Us Weekly. Paul Schrote wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Hagee. Our senior producer is Jen Swan. Our producer is John Reed. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Tate Busby.

Our story editor is Sarah Enni. Our senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Sound design by James Morgan. Fact-checking by Sonia Maynard. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze On Sync. Our executive producers are Janine Cornelow, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis for Wondery. Wondery.

If you like Scamfluencers, you can listen to every episode early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.