Prosecutors said Shah took various steps to hide her role in the fraud, including by incorporating her business entities using third parties’ names, instructing others to do the same and directing others to use encrypted messaging applications to communicate with each other. Shah began operating a Manhattan-based sales floor that sold the fraudulent products, Fletcher said.įrom 2018 to 2020, Shah controlled the day-to-day operations of the Manhattan operation and moved some of its operations to Kosovo to dodge law enforcement and regulatory scrutiny, the prosecutor said. They said she lied about how much individuals could earn after buying the businesses services and the purported success of others who had bought the services. Prosecutors said Shah and others delivered lists of people to purchasers of the “Business Opportunity Scheme” that actually consisted of others who had previously paid to create their own online businesses. Attorney Kiersten Ann Fletcher said Shah acted as a “lead broker,” directing what sales workers said to their victims and sharing in illegal profits, using some of the money to pay for the New York City apartment where she lived and for other personal items.Īs part of her plea agreement, Shah agreed to forfeit $6.5 million and to pay $9.5 million in restitution.įletcher said Shah engaged in a fraud from 2012 to March 2021 that sold bogus services that were promoted as capable of enabling people to make substantial amounts of money through online businesses. He added: “These victims were sold false promises of financial security but instead Shah and her co-conspirators defrauded them out of their savings and left them with nothing to show for it.”Īssistant U.S. Attorney Damian Williams called Shah a “key participant in a nationwide scheme that targeted elderly, vulnerable victims.” Shah remained free on bail but did not speak as she left the courthouse and walked a short distance to a waiting vehicle. “I knew this was wrong and that many people were harmed and I’m so sorry,” Shah told Judge Sidney H. She said she knew that she was teaming up with others to market products to people “that had little or no value.” The government said she also seemed to mock the charges against her by claiming that the “only thing I’m guilty of is being Shah-mazing” and then she profited from it by marketing “Justice for Jen” merchandise after her arrest as she directed others to lie while trying to conceal her conduct from investigators.She told a judge that beginning in 2012, she participated in a massive telemarketing fraud for nearly a decade that prosecutors say cheated thousands of people nationwide, including some over age 55. They said she also rented an apartment in midtown Manhattan, leased a Porsche Panamera, bought hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury goods and funded various cosmetic procedures while cheating the Internal Revenue Service of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The home, they said, is now listed for sale for $7.4 million. In a presentence submission, prosecutors said she used profits from the fraud to live a life of luxury that included a nearly 10,000-square-foot mansion with eight fireplaces dubbed “Shah Ski Chalet” in the resort haven of Park City, Utah. “She always knew what she was doing wrong,” he said, noting her efforts to slow the investigation into her misdeeds by lying to investigators and taking evasive actions to obscure her true role in the fraud. He called her the most culpable among more than 30 defendants. Attorney Robert Sobelman said Shah was a leader of a “clear and brazen fraud” that stretched from 2012 to March 2021 as bogus services were promoted as enabling people to make substantial amounts of money through online businesses.
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