Ancient “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Jen Shah gets candid about how the crimes she reported had a major impact on her two sons, Sharrieff Jr. and Omar.
Jen Shah was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in 2022 after pleading guilty to her role in a telemarketing fraud scheme that left a number of elderly and vulnerable victims emotionally scarred.
Why Jen Shah asked her two sons to write her letters of impact while she was in prison
Speaking to PEOPLE in her first interview since her release, Shah, 52, said she took many steps to fully understand how the reported crimes affected her more than just her.
To start, the former Bravo star said she asked her family, Sharrieff Shah, and their two sons to write her impact letters, detailing how her reported actions made them feel.
“I needed to know how I had hurt them,” Shah said. “I needed them to be honest with me and tell me everything. I needed to hear that raw feedback, because that’s the only way to grow and heal. You can’t improve if you don’t know what you did.”
Jen Shah said her children feared writing impact letters to her
Shah explained that her sons, who were introduced in the first three seasons of “RHOSLC,” didn’t feel comfortable telling their mother how much she had hurt them.
“They were like, ‘Dad, I don’t want to hurt mom’s feelings,'” Shah said, later revealing that she had doubts about what she was asking of them.
However, Shah’s husband, known as “Coach” to Bravo viewers, told their children it was best to be honest about their feelings.
“And the coach told the boys, ‘You’re doing this for mom,’” she said.
Jen Shah cried a lot of ‘tears’ after hearing what her sons had to say to her
Shah eventually received his sons’ impact letters and had the chance to hear them out loud in a group session.
She said hearing their confessions was a moving experience. “…there were a lot of tears,” she said, calling the moment “hard.”
“But I needed to hear it,” she continued. “And I think that’s one of the reasons we grew closer as a family – because we had these difficult conversations, and I faced those things head on. I knew there was hurt and pain, but you kind of wanted to say, ‘Let’s sweep this under the rug.’ But I chose to rip that scab and that wound off and pour salt on it, if you will.
Shah’s Victims Speak Out About His Reported Crimes in 2023
Shah’s children were not the only ones affected by the reported crimes.
The reality star’s victims spoke about the scheme with Good Morning America in 2023 and revealed how the scheme turned their lives upside down.
One elderly victim said she invested more than half of her retirement savings, about $47,000, into the fraudulent program Shah’s team sold her.
A 44-year-old Iowa resident said she filed for bankruptcy after being charged more than $40,000 on multiple credit cards.
Ralph Hallock, a World War II veteran, committed suicide after losing more than $100,000 in the scheme.
U.S. Attorney Damiian Williams called Shah a “key participant” in a nationwide scheme that provided victims with worthless services.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said Shah was “not ignorant” of what was happening behind the scenes.
They went on to claim that Shah “directed others to lie,” delete text messages and electronic documents, and claimed she even “moved some of her operations overseas and tried to keep computers and other evidence out of reach of the investigation.”
Shah apologizes to victims in first interview since release
During her interview, Shah spoke directly to her victims, admitting that she was “wrong” in her role in the scheme.
“I made bad decisions. I should have done things differently. I should have been more diligent. And I am deeply remorseful and I am sorry for my actions and for my part. I take full responsibility for them,” she said.
At another point in the conversation, Shah said she was “sorry,” adding that her public interview was a step toward “accepting responsibility.”