Imagine a twentysomething with no business experience or education being taken seriously in loan negotiations for $25 million to start a private social club. All while living in some of Manhattan’s most luxurious boutique hotels. And never paying the bill.
Imagine the same woman inviting friends for an expense-paid trip to Morocco but then sticking one of them with a $60,000 bill. That’s right, sixty-thousand dollars.
Meet Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey – yet another case of truth being stranger than fiction. Sorkin was convicted of eight charges in 2019 by a Manhattan jury, including second-degree grand larceny, theft of services, and first-degree attempted grand larceny.
But con artists are nothing new. So why all the fuss?
Sorokin, dubbed New York’s Con Queen, has been called a scammer, a swindler, a sociopath, and a feminist anti-hero. She gained a bizarre notoriety when, after her first arrest, it was discovered that her story of being a German heiress with a €60 million trust fund was a lie. And that her surname was not Delvey but Sorokin.
A girl from Russia who moved to Germany as a teenager, then departed from her family to live in Paris. And then on to the Big Apple where she came onto the scene with a European accent that was somewhat hard to place. German? A trace of Russian? With high-end designer clothes and an extravagant lifestyle, she quickly penetrated Manhattan’s closed socialite scene.
Promising incoming wire payments to cover declined credit cards, Sorokin managed to pull off nearly $50,000 of hotel tabs without ever paying a dime – with the exception of the $100 tips she would lavish on staff.
Later, Sorokin would claim that she never told anyone she was rich – they assumed it to their own detriment.
Smart, cunning, and arrogant, she even managed to steal a plane from a private jet company. But her biggest feat was landing meetings with Fortress Investment Group (among others) where she pitched her business plan to launch a private social club catering to art and, of course, the wealthy. She was acquitted for the charge of attempted grand larceny in her quest for a $22 million dollar loan from Fortress.
Sorokin served four years, was released on parole, and then promptly overstayed her visa expiration. Now at 31, she insists she is not sorry.
“For years, Ms. Sorokin pretended to be Anna Delvey, a German heiress with a trust fund that paid for a life of glamorous ease. She lived in boutique hotels, wore designer clothes and hung out in Manhattan’s moneyed party circles. In reality, Ms. Sorokin, 28, was a Russian immigrant who walked out on bills, connived her way into luxury, and persuaded a bank employee to give her $100,000 she never intended to pay back, the jury decided in convicting her last month.” -Emily Palmer, The New York Times
In her defense, aren’t there numerous young entrepreneurs with a dream who didn’t take the academic route yet successfully launch successful businesses? Sure. But they didn’t falsify financial bank statements – Sorokin later bragged about what an easy task it was to falsify PDFs. Her story is currently featured in the Netflix show, “Inventing Anna,” which garnered her over $100,000, none of which she can touch thanks to the Son of Sam law, which stipulates that convicted criminals cannot profit from their crimes.
Following is a sampling of documents in the RealDealDocs database from companies with nexus to Anna Sorokin:
Blade Air Mobility, Inc. Exh 31 Rule 13A-14(A)/15D-14(A) Certification
Fortress Investment Group LLC 10-Q
Augmenting Lender Supplement (City National Bank) for New Home Company Inc.
Sources
A Fake Heiress Called Anna Delvey Conned the City’s Wealthy. ‘I’m Not Sorry,’ She Says.