‘Real Housewives’ Star Gets 6 1/2 Years for Telemarketing Scam

The housewife was real. The deal wasn’t.

Reality TV star Jen Shah was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for running a nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme that prosecutors said targeted “vulnerable, elderly victims” and was accompanied by extraordinary efforts to conceal her crime from them.

Shah, of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, victimized thousands of people from at least 2012 until her arrest in March 2021 by selling them bogus services for online businesses and inflicting “significant financial hardship and damage” on them, the US Justice Department said in a statement Friday.

Jen Shah

Photographer: Andrew Peterson/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Shah, 49, facilitated ...