Come lie with me
Att’y: Accused con artist like Sinatra
She did it her way.
The phony German heiress accused of forging her identity to scam a $22 million loan did nothing Frank Sinatra himself wouldn’t have done to advance his social standing, the woman’s attorney said Tuesday.
The lawyer for pseudosocialite Anna Sorokin wrapped up her case with a got-the-world-on-a-string defense, comparing the suspected swindler to Ol’ Blue Eyes at his flimflamming best.
Sorokin’s lawyer, Todd Spodek, recalled a 1944 concert at Times Square’s Paramount Theater at which Sinatra’s handlers paid women to squeal, faint and swoon to create a teen idol stir.
“Sinatra made a brand new start of it in New York, just as Miss Sorokin did,” Spodek told jurors in Manhattan Supreme Court. “They both created their own opportunities.”
Spodek said that banks, hotels and a private airline company all made “exceptions” for Sorokin, 28, because they believed she was a German heiress. He said she was trying to raise money to open her own social club.
“You have to put yourself in the shoes of a 25-year-old German national who managed to infiltrate a world that very few of us manage to see,” Spodek said. “Ms. Sorokin never had an intent to commit a crime.”
But the defense and prosecution version of events were like night and day. Prosecutors say Sorokin fooled everyone from friends and financial institutions, convincing them she was a rich heiress, when she was nothing more than a freeloader whose scams netted her more than $275,000.
Assistant Manhattan DA Catherine McCaw said Sorokin tried to secure $22 million in loans from two banks by submitting fraudulent paperwork.
“The focus on your attention should be on all the different actions that the defendant took in order to swindle them out of their money,” McCaw told jurors. “The reality is the defendant told lie after lie to victim after victim. She submitted phony document after phony document, altered identity card after altered identity card. Why would a person whose intent was something other than criminal take all of these actions?”
Sorokin faces grand larceny and theft charges.
A former friend, Rachel Williams, had testified that Sorokin invited her on an allexpenses-paid trip to Morocco and then stuck her with the $70,000 tab.
Jurors began deliberations Tuesday afternoon.
Sorokin managed to get under Justice Diane Kiesel’s skin after the defendant delayed court several times over her wardrobe. Once, the judge reprimanded her after she refused to come to court because she didn’t like her outfit.