Jen Shah's Alleged Victim, Ex-Employee and Aunt Speak Out on Fraud Charges In Hulu Doc

ABC News took a deep dive into the allegations against Jen Shah in a new Hulu documentary "The Housewife & the Shah Shocker."

The "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" star stands accused of generating and selling "lead lists" of innocent people who could be targeted as part of a telemarketing scam for almost a decade. Many of the victims were elderly and working class. She pled not guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges in April.

Among those interviewed for the new special were Koa Johnson, a fashion designer who worked for Shah as her stylist in 2020, a pair of Homeland Security agents involved in her case, one of her alleged victims and her own aunt -- one of the few people publicly supporting her amid the legal mess.

Johnson provided some of the juiciest intel about Shah, sharing some tidbits about her alleged financials and treatment of her employees.

"I met Jen Shah in March 2020. I was in charge of styling her, creating these custom gowns. My job really was to create an image for her. The most expensive dress I designed for her was her intro dress," he said, referring to the gown she wore for Season 1 promo photos. "The feathers alone were about $2,500, so we're talking at least $10-12,000 gown. Image is everything to her, how she looks, how people see her, how she sees herself."

Johnson claimed Shah was "very secretive on a lot of things," especially when it came to her money. "The items that you see, like the fur coat, they're not owned by her. Any of the large jewelry that you see on her, those are leased and borrowed as well," he alleged. "Did Jen Shah drive around in a Porsche? Yes. Does she drive in a Porsche now? No. Why? It wasn't her Porsche, it wasn't her car."

Jen was a volatile presence in the first season of RHOLSC, with her blowups over pretty much everything causing friction with her costars and fans who watched the show. According to Johnson, that was only a taste of the real Jen.

"Every scene she's screaming and in real life, there are moments where she's always screaming. She's actually worse off screen," he claimed. "She did say in a couple of interviews she's 'The Wizard of Oz,' the woman behind the curtain. I don't think she's the wizard, I think she's the Wicked Witch of the West."

In early 2021, video leaked of Shah berating her employees -- including Johnson -- ahead of her first reunion taping. Johnson claimed Jen threw a bowl at him during the blowup and said he had no idea who secretly recorded her, claiming "there were a lot of people" around who easily could have done it -- including Jen's other employees and friends, as well as his own interns. After that dressing down, Johnson was "so exhausted" working for Shah and felt like things were never going to get better, "no matter what I did."

"I think that crossed a line and a boundary for me. I decided to get a one-way ticket to Hawaii and I left," he added. "The last paid compensation I got from her was in September 2020, but I worked for her all the way up to January. As far as my other coworkers, they made it known to me they were not being compensated as well."

The blowup was actually addressed on a recent episode of the show, though Shah didn't refer to Johnston by name. Saying she couldn't trust anyone, Shah claimed Koa "took my kindness and repaid me by making it look like I mistreated him, which was not the case at all." Her team didn't comment on the special, despite multiple attempts by ABC to reach out.

Another voice in the doc belonged to 67-year-old Marie Walker, an Atlanta teacher who hoped to start a health and beauty business during the pandemic, when teaching jobs dried up. She said she clicked on an online ad to help her "Work from Home," before she was inundated with calls from all kinds of companies -- including Mastery Pro. Mastery Pro is an alleged shell company set up by Shah and, according to government's attorney Kiersten Fletcher, the reality star had debit cards associated with the company at her home when agents searched the property.

"From Mastery Pro I did purchase a social media package, but I would need to send in $1,000 from my bank for a social media boost package. In January 2021, I started having a lot of problems with the website. I was trying to reach the marketing, the coaching, the website builders and I just couldn't reach anybody. There was no website, nothing," claimed Walker.

"My head was really spinning there, I said, 'Oh, this is just a scam.' I contacted all my credit card companies, my banks, I contacted the police departments, made reports, contacted the FTC," she continued. "I put in a total about $18,000, I did get back some on my credit cards, about $8,000, but the rest is list."

Walker herself is not actually part of the case against Shah, though Mastery Pro is.

"If Jen Shah has been proven to scam people or defraud people, she needs to be punished," added Walker. "If I can talk to the people that scammed me, I would say, 'Would you do this to your mother? To your sister? And why, why would you do this ... and why would you keep doing it?"

Speaking in the doc, Rick Patel, the Acting Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations New York, claimed Shah's arrest on the day she was filming for the Bravo show -- which was documented in harrowing detail -- was simply a coincidence.

"In any of our operations, we don't look for specific timing to do our arrest. In the case of Jen Shah, she had a television crew that was following her on a regular basis, so it was not planned in any way," he explained. "Our investigators and special agents need to do our jobs and I'm happy to say they did it without incident and she was taken into custody."

Of the charges against Shah and everyone else involved in the case, he said it's "disturbing" to see the accused living lavish lives while the victims have "everything they worked for completely vanish."

"When you talk to a victim and you see everything they've worked for and then you see where these fraudsters are living the best lives they can live, they don't have a problem sleeping at night, I have a problem sleeping at night," he added. He then vowed, "We are going to try our best to get as much of their money back as possible. Getting restitution for the victims is always our #1 priority."

While many of the talking heads reminded viewers that there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the only person really standing up for Jen throughout the special was her aunt, Lehua Vincent.

"I'd describe her as the mom every kid wants. Fun, fun mom, working into the late hours because she's so committed to provide for her sons," she said. "What you see on the Real Housewives is so twisted at times as far as what they'd like you to think or believe their character of Jen Shah to be. But the real Jen Shah, the person that I know, she has dealt with adversity every single day of her life and through it all, achieved."

"Seeing members of law enforcement approach Jen's home and place her teenage son, her nephew, her nephew's wife and their young son at gunpoint and treat them as if they were criminals is very traumatizing," she added, referring to some of the arrest footage which was aired on the show.

"This is the most difficult time for our entire family. The Jen Shah that I know is a woman who has come from a culture that is deeply rooted in honestly, loyalty and hard work," Vincent continued. "There's just no way that Jen has the ability to be harmful or hurtful or disrespectful. We're innocent until proven guilty and she should be treated as such and I believe her to be nothing but innocent."

Arrested alongside Shah was her longtime assistant Stuart Smith. Though he initially entered a not guilty plea, he changed it to guilty earlier this month.

"I knowingly and intentionally discussed and engaged with other individuals to develop a plan or operation to obtain money by false representation by offering and inducing individuals, many of whom were over 50 years of age or older, to provide money to entities that I and others were involved with," he said in a statement, per PEOPLE.

He added that he later discovered "these telemarketing companies were misleading customers of those entities by selling individuals, many of them who were older than 50 years of age, information that purported to be services to enhance their business opportunities."

"The services sold were of no value and of no real benefit to the customer," he added.

Shah, meanwhile, has maintained her innocence and on a recent episode of the show said, "What I have been accused of is absolutely the complete opposite of anything I would ever do in my life."

She added, "If I have any fault, it is because I am too giving and I help too many people."

"Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" airs Sundays on Bravo. The Hulu Original "The Housewife & the Shah Shocker" is streaming now.