Anna Sorokin: fake heiress found guilty of theft and grand
larceny in Manhattan
Woman who masqueraded as Anna Delvey swindled tens of
thousands of dollars from banks, hotels and friends
Associated Press
Fri 26 Apr 2019 07.26 BST First published on Fri 26 Apr 2019
01.40 BST
A New York jury on Thursday convicted an extravagant
socialite who bankrolled an implausibly lavish lifestyle with tens of thousands
of dollars she swindled from banks, hotels and friends who believed she was a
wealthy German heiress.
The Manhattan jury found Anna Sorokin guilty of four counts
of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted
grand larceny following a month-long trial that attracted international
attention. She was acquitted of one count of grand larceny and one count of
attempted grand larceny. She is to be sentenced 9 May.
Sorokin also faces deportation to Germany because
authorities say she overstayed her visa.
Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin deceived friends and
financial institutions into believing she had a fortune of about $67m (60m
euros) overseas that would cover her high-end clothing, luxury hotel stays and
trans-Atlantic travel.
She claimed her father was diplomat or an oil baron and went
to extraordinary lengths to have others pay her way. Prosecutors said she
promised one friend an all-expenses paid trip to Morocco but then stuck her
with the $62,000 bill.
She also forged financial records in an application for a
$22m loan to fund a private arts club she wanted to build, complete with
exhibitions, installations and pop-up shops, prosecutors said. She was denied
the loan but persuaded one bank to lend her $100,000 she failed to repay.
Her defense attorney, Todd Spodek, insisted Sorokin planned
to settle her six-figure debts and was merely “buying time”.
Anna Sorokin proves we’re all soft touches for glamour
scammers
Rebecca Nicholson
There’s a reason why the story of the sham heiress is
fascinating – in our phoney world any one of us could be conned
Sat 27 Apr 2019 15.00 BST
Netflix and HBO are both working on the story of the
convicted conwoman Anna Sorokin, aka ‘Anna Delvey’
On Thursday, in a New York courtroom, Anna Sorokin was
convicted of a litany of charges: four counts of theft of services, three of
grand larceny and one of attempted grand larceny. The story of her brief,
bright career as a scammer, when she floated around the city claiming to be an
heiress called Anna Delvey, on a cycle of borrowing and defaulting, has proved
so gripping that it is already being turned into competing projects. A New York
magazine report from 2018 was optioned for Netflix; a Vanity Fair story,
written by the photojournalist who had been swindled by Sorokin (and who
testified against her), is being adapted for HBO by Lena Dunham.
Sorokin’s convictions, for which she faces a prison sentence
and deportation to Germany, make her the latest in a line of high-level fakers
elevated to celebrity status by our fascination. It’s no wonder that Netflix
and HBO are involved in turning the saga into entertainment: from the Fyre
festival to Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced CEO of Theranos (not, in a week of
Avengers overload, to be confused with Thanos), tales of people promising
something they could never, or never intended to, deliver are everywhere.
It is surely just a matter of time before Netflix creates a
“glamour scammers” category, on a par with “understated TV dramas featuring a
strong female lead” or, as I found when scrolling last week, “sparking joy”, which
perhaps reveals more about my algorithms than I should be comfortable with.
I used to think that the appeal of such stories was down to
the unedifying pleasure of schadenfreude and the firm belief that we, the
people watching, would never be conned like that. The Fyre festival fiasco
thrived on this sentiment: people saw others paying for the pursuit of
impossible glamour, only to find that it was actually impossible.
Now I think the appeal might lie somewhere else. We are all
in a position where being tricked on some level is not unusual and seeing these
grand scams unfold only highlights how much of the world is run on persuasion
and image of no substance. Even Sorokin’s legal strategy emphasised the fakery
around us. “Everyone’s life was perfectly curated for social media. People were
fake. People were phoney. And money was made on hype alone,” her lawyer told
the jury.
It’s little comfort to those damaged by Sorokin’s actions.
But they expose a vulnerability in all of us and that might be what makes such
stories so desperately, hopelessly thrilling.
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