Anna Sorokin, the prolific auburn-haired scammer who conned some of New York’s wealthiest denizens into believing that she was a German heiress with millions of euros to her name, has been found guilty of theft of services, second-degree grand larceny and first-degree grand larceny by jurors in Manhattan. This means that Sorokin, who went by the alias Anna Delvey, is facing up to 15 years in prison pending appeal.
While receiving this damning news, Sorokin still managed to retain a sliver of her high-end tastes. This week, she appeared in court wearing a glamorous sheer blouse over a slip dress. Both items were black, as though the former society girl were mourning the life she’d fought so hard for but would never truly have.
Subscribe to Observer’s Lifestyle Newsletter
The sentence is a shockingly definitive ruling for the once-aspiring art-world luminary, whose schemes were all part of her dream of founding an exclusive club called the Anna Delvey Foundation. Evidence reveals that Sorokin went to extreme lengths to evade the hefty bills she ran up; she did this by taking advantage of the generosity of her friends and through more elaborate tactics, but her multifaceted ruse eventually collapsed in on itself.
When someone is delivered such a blow, it makes sense that they would fall back on their family for support, but Sorokin’s parents don’t seem particularly eager to get her out of this jam.
“I really do hope my daughter finds what she is looking for, whatever it is,” Sorokin’s father Vadim told DailyMailTV. “I do not have any influence on her life and what she does. It is down to her what she has done and it is something I am not comfortable to talk about.”
Sorokin was born in 1991 in a Moscow suburb, and relocated to Germany with her family a couple of years later. Consequently, Germany is apparently where the would-be heiress currently holds citizenship, and according to the Daily Mail, she is currently in the United States on an expired visa and now faces deportation. In an interview filmed by DailyMailTV, Sorokin’s lawyer, Todd Spodek, said he didn’t have any comment on her immigration status.
If Sorokin were deported, it would be a dramatic expulsion for someone who wanted, more than anything, to be counted among America’s wealthy elite. So many people became fans of “Anna Delvey” when her story broke because of how brazen and almost aspirational her alleged crimes were. Not many people in the world could persuade a friend to accompany them on a $62,000 trip to Morocco and then slap them with the bill, but Anna Sorokin did. Perhaps even fewer people would take up residence in the fancy SoHo hotel 11 Howard without bothering to put a credit card on file at the front desk, but Anna Sorokin did that too.
A concierge at 11 Howard named Neffatari Davis told New York magazine last year that when she learned of the extent of Sorokin’s crimes, her first response was glee. “They called me down to the office,” Davis said. “They said, ‘Neff, did you know about this?’ And I started dying laughing. I thought it was a boss move.” At least the woman formerly known as Anna Delvey has someone in her corner.
