59
RHOSLC star Meredith Marks has some serious doubts about Monica Garcia’s claims she talked with a friend in the Secret Service about Jen Shah.
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City newbie Monica Garcia came on the scene, dropping some major claims about former boss and friend Jen Shah; however, not everyone is buying the newbie’s claims.
“I had never met Monica until the snowball day, and she came off as high-energy, wanting to have fun,” Meredith Marks told Us Weekly on Wednesday, September 6. “She definitely brings a lot of energy, and I was cautiously optimistic.”
While Meredith likes Monica, she has some questions about the RHOSLC newbie’s claims about talking with a friend in the Secret Service about Jen.
“??The first thing that really went through my head — and maybe I’m missing something here — but the first thing that occurred to me is that the Secret Service is not the FBI, and to the best of my knowledge, it’s just presidential security,” Meredith said. “And I’m not sure what Jen did that has anything to do with presidential security. So, the whole thing just seemed odd and didn’t add up to me, to be totally honest.”
During the RHOSLC season 4 premiere on September 5, Monica told viewers that she met Jen long before her 2021 arrest. Monica “stepped in to help” Jen after she fired one of her assistants.
Monica claims that Jen offered her a way to make a lot of money by joining her telemarketing business.
“So, Jen had fired her assistant, and I stepped in to help her. One night, Jen asked me, ‘Do you wanna be rich? Do you wanna make $600,000 a year? All you have to do is put this, this, and this in your name,’” Monica shared.
The RHOSLC newbie was “weirded out” by Jen’s offer and claims she talked about the offer with her friend in the Secret Service, who urged her to stay away from Jen.
The 38-year-old says she then helped put Jen behind bars by becoming a witness for the federal government.
“I remember being so weirded out, like, ‘Wait, what?’ It was very bizarre, and I have a friend in the Secret Service, and I called him. And he said, ‘Get the f*ck away from Jen Shah, she’s going to prison.’ And she was arrested two months later. And that is how I became a witness with the federal government in her trial,” Monica explained.
After initially pleading not guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Jen changed her plea to guilty in July 2022 as part of a plea deal.
In January 2023, Jen was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. A month later, Jen reported to FPC Bryan in Texas to serve her sentence. Her prison sentence has since been reduced by one year.
Jen’s incarceration means she’s no longer starring on RHOSLC, which has changed the dynamic of the show for season 4.
“The dynamic shifted for sure. I mean, she’s a big personality,” Meredith told Us. “You’re going to see a change, but it wasn’t just just Jen being gone. It was Mary [Cosby] being back, Angie [Katsanevas] being full-time, and Monica coming in. It’s a lot of moving parts. So, I don’t know that I can pin down what I would attribute to Jen versus anything else,” Meredith told Us Weekly.
RHOSLC airs on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
