"Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" star charged in fraud and money laundering scheme

"Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" star Jen Shah has been arrested and charged with running a wide-ranging telemarketing fraud scheme, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Shah faces charges alongside her assistant, Stuart Smith, who was also featured on the inaugural season of the reality TV franchise.

Shah and Smith have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing and conspiracy to commit money laundering for allegedly selling "lead lists" for business opportunities that were nonexistent.  The indictment alleges the two carried out the scheme from at least 2012, in which they "generated and sold lead lists to other participants for use by their telemarketing sales floors with the knowledge that the individuals they had identified as 'leads' would be defrauded by the other participants." The scheme involved selling services claiming to help victims manage their online businesses and make them more profitable. In reality, the "'services' would provide little or no value to the victims' businesses," the indictment said.