Anna's grift of gab
Scammer socialite makes TV rounds
Wannabe socialite and convicted thief Anna Sorokin describes her time in a Rikers Island jail cell as “therapeutic.”
Sorokin, 30, who goes by the alias Anna Delvey, spent 19 months at the Queens jail after scamming about $200,000 from banks and businesses by posing as a German heiress with a 60 million euro fortune.
Asked about her time at the notorious jail during an interview aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday, the ex-con laughed and replied,
“In a way, that was therapeutic. I, for example, used the time to read a lot and to write.”
The so-called “Soho grifter” ended up finishing her sentence at a state prison, where she was sprung three weeks ago.
After serving a total of nearly four years behind bars for grand larceny, theft of services and attempted grand larceny, Sorokin has been basking in her celebrity and gallivanting around the city with a videographer in tow. In her interview on “GMA,” Sorokin spun her fraud as a misguided attempt to fund an elite Manhattan art club. She filed bogus financial documents with a bank to try to get a $22 million loan for the dubious venture.
But she insisted during the interview that she always planned to pay it all back. “The idea would be for this business to work and I would just repay everything,” she said. The interview featured Sorokin strutting in front of the Manhattan Criminal Court building where she was tried and convicted, wearing a burgundy trench coat and oversized black shades.
Netflix controversially paid the fake heiress about $320,000 for the rights to her life story and to be a consultant on an upcoming show about her crimes produced by Shonda Rhimes and starring Julia Garner.
After satisfying Sorokin’s $198,000 restitution order, the remaining funds were released to the convicted thief, who was recently holed up at the fivestar NoMad Hotel while documenting her glamorous postprison life on Instagram. “I was young. I would not repeat my actions. I’m just trying to make the best out of my situation,” she said in the interview.
Sorokin, a German citizen, is facing deportation proceedings.