‘HEIR’ HEAD GUILTY
STOLE $275G POSING AS SOCIALITE
A wannabe wealthy socialite was convicted Thursday of defrauding banks, pals and vendors of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and of providing false information in an attempt to seek a multi-million dollar bank loan.
Anna Sorokin, 28, faces up to 15 years behind bars on the top count — first-degree attempted grand larceny — and will be sentenced on May 9. She faces many more years behind bars should the judge sentence her to consecutive time.
After about two days of deliberations that capped a sixweek trial, Sorokin — who also goes by the name Anna Delvey — was convicted of bilking victims to the tune of about $275,000 while pretending to be a wealthy German heiress with a $60 million trust fund inheritance.
Prosecutors argued she also tried to get more than $22 million in loans by trying to win over bankers after getting referrals from influential people she had duped into believing she was rich.
Sorokin was acquitted of a count relating to a grift she was accused of running on her former close pal, Rachel Williams.
Williams, a former Vanity Fair editor, was meant to pay at least $60,000, including on her Conde Nast corporate credit card, after Sorokin booked them a lavish trip to Morocco and was unable to pay for lodging and other major expenses.
Williams, 31, cried extensively throughout her Manhattan Supreme Court testimony about having trouble paying rent and other bills after she claimed to have fallen victim to Sorokin’s scam.
Williams admitted to scoring over $300,000 in book deals and an exclusive rights deal with HBO over her experience.
Sorokin and Williams first met at a nightclub. They became inseparable as Sorokin won Williams over by buying her drinks night after night at swanky Manhattan establishments. Sorokin also covered the costs of Williams’ $300per-person personal training sessions, which they attended as a pair.
Williams, who penned a lengthy piece for Vanity Fair about the ordeal, insisted she was the victim of a event and said she wanted to share her story because there are “complex emotions involved.”
Sorokin “committed real white collar felonies over the course of her lengthy masquerade,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a statement Thursday.
Sorokin’s lawyer Todd Spodek in his summation this week compared Sorokin’s story to Frank Sinatra’s iconic tune “New York, New York.”
“Sinatra made a brand new start of it in New York, just as Miss Sorokin did,” Spodek told the jury. “They both created their own opportunities.”