Case File: Anna Delvey

Anna Sorokin was born in Domodedovo, Russia, in 1991. Her father worked as a truck driver and her mother had worked in a small convenience store before becoming a homemaker. In 2007, when Sorokin was 16, the family moved to Eschweiler, Germany, near the Dutch and Belgian borders, where her father started a heating and cooling business.

Sorokin attended a Catholic high school, where former classmates later remembered her as quiet and intensely interested in fashion. After graduating in 2011, she moved to London to attend Central Saint Martins, an art and design school, but soon dropped out and returned to Germany.

She later relocated to Paris, where she interned at Purple, a French fashion and culture magazine, and began using the surname Delvey. The job brought her closer to the international fashion and art world she had long followed from afar.

Sorokin traveled to New York City for Fashion Week in 2013 and soon began moving through the city's art and fashion circles. She presented herself as a German heiress with a substantial family fortune overseas, sometimes offering different explanations for the source of her wealth.

Her lifestyle reinforced the story. Sorokin wore expensive clothes, stayed in upscale hotels and became known for handing out $100 tips. When credit cards failed or payments were delayed, she blamed difficulties transferring money from European accounts. Her apparent wealth and willingness to spend freely helped make those explanations believable.

Sorokin eventually began planning the Anna Delvey Foundation, or ADF, an exclusive private arts club with exhibitions, restaurants and other cultural spaces. She focused on 281 Park Avenue South, a historic Manhattan building, as its potential home.

To finance the project, Sorokin sought a loan of roughly $22 million. She claimed to have tens of millions of dollars overseas and submitted financial documents that prosecutors later said were fraudulent. Although she never obtained the full financing, she persuaded City National Bank to extend her a temporary $100,000 overdraft. After using part of the money for expenses related to the proposed loan, she spent much of the roughly $55,000 that remained on her personal lifestyle.

In early 2017, she moved into the 11 Howard luxury hotel in Manhattan, where she accumulated a bill of roughly $30,000 before the hotel locked her out. She also chartered a private plane to Omaha, Neb., to attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, leaving behind a bill of approximately $35,000.

Her financial problems became increasingly difficult to conceal. Hotels demanded payment, credit cards were declined and promised wire transfers failed to arrive. Sorokin also deposited bad checks into bank accounts and withdrew money before the checks were returned.

One of the most publicized incidents came during a 2017 trip to Morocco with several friends, including Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams. Sorokin had offered to pay for the trip, but when her cards repeatedly failed at their luxury hotel, Williams put the charges on her own cards. She was left with bills totaling roughly $62,000, which Sorokin repeatedly promised she would repay but failed to.

By the summer of 2017, the image Sorokin had carefully constructed was unraveling as businesses pursued unpaid bills and Williams pressed her for the money from Morocco.

New York prosecutors began examining Sorokin's finances as complaints accumulated from banks, hotels and other businesses. Investigators found that the German fortune she had repeatedly invoked did not exist and that documents used to support her claims of wealth had been fabricated.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office ultimately accused Sorokin of stealing or attempting to steal approximately $275,000 during a 10-month period. The allegations covered several schemes, including the fraudulent loan applications, bad checks, unpaid hotel stays and private jet charter.

Williams also contacted authorities after failing to recover her money. By then, Sorokin had left New York and was staying at Passages Malibu, a luxury rehabilitation facility in California. Williams remained in contact with her and helped investigators determine where she was staying.

In October 2017, police arrested Sorokin outside the facility and returned her to New York. She was later indicted on charges including grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and theft of services. Prosecutors argued that her supposed fortune was not simply a social fiction but the basis of a deliberate scheme to obtain money, credit and services she knew she could not pay for.

Sorokin's trial began in Manhattan in March 2019. Prosecutors portrayed her as a calculated fraudster who repeatedly manipulated banks and businesses by convincing them she possessed a fortune overseas. Her attorney, Todd Spodek, acknowledged that Sorokin had lied about her wealth but argued that she genuinely intended to build the Anna Delvey Foundation and expected to repay the money once she secured financing. He characterized her approach as an extreme version of the familiar "fake it until you make it" mentality.

After a month-long trial, the jury returned a mixed verdict on April 25, 2019. Sorokin was convicted on eight of 10 counts, including grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and theft of services. Jurors acquitted her of two charges, including grand larceny involving the approximately $62,000 Williams had charged during the Morocco trip and attempted grand larceny connected to one of her efforts to obtain financing.

On May 9, 2019, Sorokin was sentenced to four to 12 years in state prison. She was also ordered to pay nearly $199,000 in restitution and a $24,000 fine.

Sorokin was released from prison in February 2021 after serving nearly four years, including time spent in custody before trial. Her freedom lasted only a few weeks. The following month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained her for overstaying her visa and began efforts to deport her to Germany.

By then, Sorokin's case had taken on a life far beyond the courtroom. Netflix paid her $320,000 for the rights to her story. She used $199,000 to pay restitution and another $24,000 toward state fines, while $75,000 went toward attorney fees. In 2022, the miniseries Inventing Anna, created by Shonda Rhimes and starring Julia Garner, brought her story to an international audience.

The series arrived amid a broader fascination with high-profile scammers and helped turn Sorokin into an unlikely cultural figure. Much of the attention centered not only on what she had done, but on the audacity with which she had done it—convincing people in some of New York's wealthiest circles that she belonged among them. The Anna Delvey persona increasingly took on a life separate from the criminal case, inspiring memes, costumes and widespread debate over whether popular culture was glamorizing a convicted fraudster.

Sorokin herself embraced the attention. After being released from immigration custody under strict conditions in 2022, she sold artwork and pursued fashion and media projects, including a New York Fashion Week show she hosted on her apartment building’s rooftop in 2023. In 2024, she competed on Dancing with the Stars, appearing on the show with her court-ordered ankle monitor.

As of 2026, Sorokin remains in New York while challenging her deportation and is restricted to a 75-mile radius. She has amassed more than a million Instagram followers and continues to pursue opportunities under the Anna Delvey name, extending a public life that has lasted far longer than the scheme that first made her famous.