Anna who? The fake heiress who fooled NYC
An enigmatic young woman who flashed hundred-dollar bills and claimed to be the heiress of a multi-million-pound fortune. How did the daughter of a Russian truck driver fool New York’s high society?
Despite the fantastical plot twists and turns, what makes Netflix’s hotly anticipated new show, Inventing Anna, so exciting is that it is based on reallife events. The actions of Anna Sorokin (or Anna Delvey, as she liked to be known) are being brought to life – possibly to the embarrassment of many of those she conned.
It started in 2013, when Anna moved to New York City. Having been an intern on a fashion magazine in Paris, she was already known by the social elite.
Her background was vague – later, when acquaintances compared notes, no one was quite sure if her father was a diplomat or an oil tycoon or even a solar panel magnate – but the one part of her story that did remain consistent was that she was a German heiress, with a trust fund of $60m.
Nobody asked too many questions. Seamlessly, Anna – dressed head-to-toe in designer outfits, naturally – slipped into the social scene of the Manhattan glitterati. Attending all of the right parties with all of the right people, Anna was walking the walk and talking the talk. Her social media followers hit 40,000. No one had any reason to doubt her credentials as a rich socialite.
In February 2017, Anna checked into the 11 Howard boutique hotel in Soho, New York, for a month. At almost £300 a night, a stay of this length was the domain of the famous or rich. And Anna certainly appeared to be… very rich. She tipped concierges, like Neffatari Davis, $100 a time for advice on the best places to eat or for carrying her many shopping bags.
Soon, she was hosting extravagant parties, inviting everyone from CEOs to celebrities. She was literally the centre of a social whirl, the talk of the town. And there was only one thing Anna was talking about – The Anna Delvey Foundation, a private arts members-only club, a venture so extravagant even her trust fund couldn’t cover it, so she needed the help of her high-profile friends and financiers to access funding.
The only inkling that there was any problem was that while cash was never, seemingly, an issue (it flowed as easily as the Champagne), her credit cards kept being declined. Luckily, there were generally other – wealthy – pals around to pick up the restaurant or bar bill.
Suspicions about Anna’s real situation didn’t arise until she’d been at the 11 Howard for six weeks – longer than she’d checked in for. The managers, rather embarrassed, realised that they didn’t have credit card details on file for Anna and that the wire transfer she’d promised to cover her ever-growing tab hadn’t materialised. Along with shopping she’d charged to her room, she owed them almost $30,000 (£21,000).
Even when a money transfer did arrive, Anna still didn’t hand over her credit card details, despite repeated requests. Things became so awkward and Anna so furious, that she threatened to move out – after a trip to Marrakech.
The trip was a disaster. Anna’s personal trainer came home early after two days, suffering from severe food poisoning, and Anna’s credit cards were again refused. Anna’s travelling companion, Rachel Williams, ended up putting the $60,000 (£43,000) bill on her American Express. The amount was more than Rachel earned in a year, and, when Anna failed to repay her the debt, she was left suffering from severe stress and anxiety.
Back in New York, things began to unravel. Anna moved downtown, into the Beekman Hotel – but after 20 days and no payment, they locked her out of her room and confiscated her belongings. The same thing happened at the W Hotel after just two days.
Effectively homeless, the Beekman and W both filed charges for theft of services.
Finally, at the end of 2017, the truth began to emerge – the hotel bills were just the tip of the iceberg.
Anna had accumulated tens of thousands of dollars of debt all over the place, including a $100,000 (£72,000) loan from City National Bank. She’d also forged bank documents to try to gain a $22m (£16m) loan to fund the Anna Delvey Foundation.
She had got her cash by depositing bad cheques and withdrawing the money before they had failed to clear.
Rather than a trust fund millionaire, in reality, Anna Sorokin was born in Russia in 1991 and moved to Germany in 2007 when she was 16 with her family. Her father was a truck driver, then an executive of a transport company and now has his own heating and cooling business. When interviewed, he has been circumspect about the family finances – presumably he doesn’t want to be held responsible for his daughter’s debt – but he denies any knowledge of a trust fund.
In 2019, Anna was found guilty of four out of six counts of grand larceny, totalling, according to Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, $275,000 ( just shy of £200,000) and sentenced to four to 12 years in prison.
Her trial was well-publicised, and Anna seemed to revel in the attention. An Instagram handle @annadelveycourtlooks even documented what she wore.
Despite her sentence, Anna, now 30, was released on 11 February 2021 for good behaviour. She is currently staying at the NoMad luxury hotel in New York, which is being paid for by her lawyers with the $320,000 (£230,000) she received from Netflix, most of which is being used to repay her bank loans, fines and legal fees.
Anna has always maintained that she was serious about setting up the Anna Delvey Foundation. ‘I was never trying to be a socialite. I had dinners, but they were work dinners,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be taken seriously.’
Has she learnt her lesson? Apparently not. Within hours of being released from prison, she was selling the rights to her story, she is also writing a book about the criminal justice system.
It seems like we definitely haven’t heard the last of her…