Jen Shah is now she’s trying to have the entire case dismissed after she pleaded not guilty to fraud charges.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star filed a motion on Monday, June 14, asking the court to dismiss the indictment against her on the basis of “legal and factual insufficiency” and suppression of evidence, according to Us Weekly.
In the new motion filed on June 14, Shah’s attorneys said federal prosecutors failed to establish that she willfully intended to defraud the telemarketing customers. Shah’s attorneys also claimed that her post-arrest statements should not be included in the case against her because she made them involuntarily.
“She was in a very vulnerable emotional state due to the combination of strange phone calls she received the morning of her arrest and her history with a convicted felon who had victimized her in New York,” the motion said. “This caused her will to be overborne easily by [Detective Christopher] Bastos and several affirmative misrepresentations he made in order to secure a waiver of rights.”
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly, the reality star received a call from “a person who did not identify himself” shortly before her March 30 arrest. This person claimed that her husband, Sharrieff Shah, had told him to call Jen. She then received another call from Bastos, a detective with the New York Police Department, while she was on her way to film an episode of RHOSLC.
“Her first thought and apprehension was that the matter was related to a different NYPD matter, in which Ms. Shah had been granted a permanent order of protection by a judge in Supreme Court, New York County, against a man who had victimized her,” Jen’s lawyers claimed.
While still on the phone with Jen, Bastos asked her to pull over, and when she did, the detective arrived with other agents and placed her under arrest. “Ms. Shah was at this point incredibly confused and emotionally off-balance from the strange series of events, and believed she might have been the victim of a false identification,” the document continued.
Jen’s lawyers also alleged that while Bastos read her Miranda rights aloud and gave her a printed copy to sign, she didn’t know what she was looking at when she signed it.
“Although she heard the words Det. Bastos read, Ms. Shah’s contact lenses, which were in her eyes, were dry, and she did not have her reading glasses, so her vision was blurry and she was unable to read the paper in front of her,” the motion added. “Even while being read her rights, Ms. Shah did not know what was going on, and still thought it might be a potential misidentification.”
Jen and her lawyers have asked for a date when they can argue the motion in front of the federal judge in New York City.
The news comes after Jen Shah and her assistant, Stuart Smith, were arrested for their alleged roles in a telemarketing scheme that defrauded hundreds of victims throughout the United States on Tuesday, March 30.
Shah and Smith were booked in Salt Lake City on conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges. They each face a maximum sentence of 30 years for the wire fraud charges and an additional 20 years for the money laundering charges.
“Jennifer Shah, who portrays herself as a wealthy and successful businessperson 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,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a press release on Tuesday, reports the outlet. “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.”
“Shah and Smith flaunted their lavish lifestyle to the public as a symbol of their ‘success,’” HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh added. “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. 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.”
According to Us Weekly, New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea went on to thank the “hard work” of the NYPD for the case.
“These individuals allegedly targeted and defrauded hundreds of victims but thanks to the hard work of the NYPD and our law enforcement partners, this illegal scheme was brought to an end,” Shea said on Tuesday. “I congratulate the NYPD detectives, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for their hard work in bringing these persons to justice.”
Photo Credit: Bravo Media/NBCUniversal
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