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Anna Sorokin, who came to the United States in 2013, scammed unwitting victims out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by posing as a German heiress named Anna Delvey.
Using a fake name and claiming she was worth a fortune, Sorokin suckered banks, hotels and some of Manhattan's wealthy elite. She was trying to secure a $25 million loan to start an arts foundation near Grammercy Park when she was arrested in 2017.
Sorokin spent two years in Rikers Island before being convicted in New York State Supreme Court of several counts of grand larceny and theft of services.
Although sentenced to a dozen years behind bars, she served two before being released for good behavior in February 2021.
Sorokin was free all of six weeks when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized her for overstaying her visa. She was held at the Bergen County Jail until last June.
She was then transferred and has since remained in the Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, N.Y., fighting deportation to Germany, where she's a naturalized citizen. The secure facility is barely 15 miles north of Passaic County, N.J.
Sorokin returned to the headlines earlier this month with the premiere of "Inventing Anna," a nine-part streaming series starring Julia Garner in the title role.
Netflix paid Sorokin $320,000 for her story, but New York state law prohibited her from profiting. The money was instead used for restitution.
Sorokin had originally told a New York Times reporter in 2019 that she wasn't sorry for her crimes. In a more recent interview, she said she feels bad that she "resorted to these actions that people think I’m glorifying now."
She called prison "a waste of time" and "not efficient." The fact that she took a culinary arts class while sex offenders, violent inmates and those with drug problems can avail themselves of special programs "has to say something about this system," she reportedly said.
Her cell has mostly books, paperwork and some trail mix for snacking, Sorokin told the Times -- "as austere as it can get it."
SEE: Anna Sorokin on ‘Inventing Anna’ and Life After Rikers (New York Times)
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