Jen Shah, a prominent personality in U.S. reality television, rose to fame through her part in The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. In 2021, she came under legal scrutiny and was charged with wire fraud and money laundering offenses. Shah pled guilty to these allegations in 2022, resulting in a prison sentence of six and a half years. She began her term in February 2023.
The question of who long Jen Shah will actually serve in prison has been a hot topic for gossip and entertainment blogs. It won’t surprise you that they often publish incorrect information or the kind of information that is misleading for the purpose of generating clicks. Sadly, Elizabeth Holmes garners the same kind of fate (so we’ve published a similar post for a real answer about Elizabeth Holmes’ situation, too).
Below, we cut through the noise and offer the definitive answer to how long Jen Shah will actually serve in prison, calculated by the guidelines in our post, “How to Calculate How Much Time You Will Actually Serve in Federal Prison.”
Calculating How Much Time Jen Shah Will Actually Serve
- Starting Point: 78 months.
- Less Good Time Credits of 11.7 months (equal to 15% of her total sentence), which brings her new total to 66.3 months
- Less First Step Act Credits of 12 months (which she will earn for working and participating in recidivism programming), which brings her new total to 54.3 months
- Less Residential Drug Abuse Program credits of 12 months (which she will likely participate in and earn due to her history of substance abuse), which brings her new total to 42.3 months
Shah will likely be recommended for the maximum amount of time for residential reentry (which can constitute time in a halfway house or home confinement) which is, in her case, 12 months.
All told, it should be expected Jen Shah will serve about 30 months in federal prison and transfer to the halfway house around August 27, 2025. She will then serve 12 months in the halfway house or (more likely) on home confinement and be released from Bureau of Prisons custody on or around August 27, 2026.
Ways This Can Change
There are a number of ways this calculation can change, both against her wishes and in her favor.
- Shah may lose Good Time Credits or First Step Act Credits due to disciplinary action.
- Shah may not gain entry into the Residential Drug Abuse Program or she may fail to complete the program. In either case, she would not earn those 12 months of credit.
- Shah may file and earn Compassionate Release, which can be granted by her sentencing judge under certain circumstances. This is a long-shot but may be considered after the majority of her sentence has been completed.
- The BOP may begin awarding First Step Act credits in accordance with how the law was originally written, which would result in a shorter residential reentry period. This long-awaited adoption would drop four months off the back-end of her sentence.
Remember, the way the Bureau of Prisons calculates sentences does occasionally change. This post was last updated in September 2023.