After completing her three-year sentence and spending an additional 18 months behind bars for overstaying her visa, Anna Vadimovna Sorokina, or Anna Sorokin, or Anna Delvey was finally released into house arrest. The con artist, who managed to steal roughly $275,000 from banks and unsuspecting acquaintances to scale New York’s social elite and fund her lavish lifestyle was convicted of multiple financial crimes in 2019. Following her release in February 2021, after a brief respite in the freedom, she was away from, she was once again detained, this time in the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) where she faces deportation (Sorokin has German citizenship).
Immigration Judge Charles Conroy allowed for her release into house arrest under the condition that she stays off social media, remains at her apartment 24/7, and continuously wears an ankle monitor.
Anna Sorokin, the inspiration behind Netflix’s “Inventing Anna” was an interesting portrayal of the obscenity of the wealth and excess behind New York City’s elite. While it was pretty satisfying seeing an outsider make a fool out of them and also a valid critique of greed and shallowness, it should be apparent that any appreciation for the limited series should be limited to it, rather than bleeding over to Sorokin herself. Go and make fun of the rich and pretentious, you are called to, but to idolize her, well you may be a real-life manifestation of one of those poor souls she swindled out of their pockets.
In her apartment in the East Village of Manhattan, The New York Times sat down with her for an interview to talk about how she was, and her plans for the future. Giving a sigh of relief and expressing joy over the additional freedom granted to her by virtue of being on house arrest, she asserts that the fight is not yet over as she continues her battle against deportation. When asked why she’s choosing to stay, she says “Letting them deport me would have been like a sign of capitulation — confirmation of this perception of me as this shallow person who only cares about obscene wealth, and that’s just not the reality. I could have left, but I chose not to because I’m trying to fix what I’ve done wrong. I have so much history in New York and I felt like if I were in Europe, I’d be running from something.”
Sorokin assumed the persona of Anna Delvey where she conjured up a fabricated history of her being the heir of a German of high social status and having an overseas bankroll of a considerable amount. A tight-knit story and her blinding charisma gave the impression that she was who she said she was and could cover any debt coming her way. The temporarily flawless heist came to an end in 2017 when she was arrested and became the subject and inspiration for “Inventing Anna,” a dramatization of the events that transpired, which was released on Netflix, and was directed by Shonda Rhimes and led by actress Julia Garner.