Before our very eyes in recent years, fraudster Sorokin’s gone from a shadowy subject of a Vanity Fair piece on her criminal behavior to a privileged celebrity.
Her Netflix series served as an accessory to the crime. It gave her a national audience. So did her zany battle in court to absolve herself of criminal charges. As has her fight to avoid deportation for overstaying her visa.
So here’s what went down on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) front. And after that, some background info and an SNL skit that brilliantly captures Sorokin’s essence.
Anna Sorokin Deported Yet?
Nope! She was supposed to board a flight bound to Frankfurt on March 14, 2022, but her deportation failed at the last minute when, according to the New York Post, she just, didn’t show up at the airport.
Sorokin’s lawyer, Manny Arora, has since said that her failure to appear was most likely caused by the motion he filed late March 14 (!) to stay the deportation.
Evidently, a judge needs to make an official decision on that matter before Sorokin can be deported. “Until we get a ruling from the appeal to stay the deportation, there won’t be much else to report,” explained Arora.
Anna Sorokin
A sampler of stories about today’s “favorite” scofflaw in America.
Here are a few of the recent stories about Sorokin:
Fake heiress Anna Sorokin, also known as Anna Delvey.
“[She] is sthttp://=https://www.fox5ny.com/news/anna-delvey-sorokin-ice-deportation-updateill in ICE custody fighting extradition, officials have confirmed to FOX 5 News.
Sorokin was granted an additional stay of removal by the 2nd Circuit Court on March 21. She remains in ICE custody pending removal,” an ICE spokesperson confirmed via email. … ICE says that it will not discuss future removal operations involving Sorokin due to what it called operational security.
Sorokin, who is a German citizen, was convicted in 2019 of 1st-degree attempted grand larceny 2nd-degree grand larceny, 3rd-degree grand larceny, and theft of services.
She left several high-end Manhattan hotels with large unpaid bills and scammed wealthy New Yorkers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
She was released from prison in 2021, but ICE quickly took her into custody.”
Free Anna Delvey art show.
According to The Guardian, a “Free Anna Delvey” art show was held in Manhattan earlier in March. Five of Anna “Delvey” Sorokin’s drawings were featured in the collection as reproductions.
“The reproductions were created by Alfredo Martinez, another famed fraudster. He spent time in prison for forging drawings by the graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The reproductions were priced at $10,000. It was unclear how many sold.
Sorokin called into the opening from jail to thank everyone there for supporting her.
She says the success of that show has inspired her to launch a solo art show.
The New York Times reports that she is planning an exhibit with 20 drawings at ‘an upscale Manhattan location’ as early as April.”
Esquire’s take.
Notes by
“In March 2021, Sorokin was arrested by immigration authorities for overstaying her visa. She had an immigration detainer attached to her name when she was first released from prison, but clearly, she wasn’t in any rush to leave New York.
Sorokin was scheduled to be deported back to Germany (Auf Wiedersehen, Anna!) on March 26, but was filing an application for relief, which is essentially legalese for ‘please don’t make me go back to Germany,’ as as a result stayed in custody stateside.
Through her lawyer, Audrey Thomas, Sorokin has asked to be granted asylum.
According to court documents reviewed by Esquire, Sorokin applied for asylum based on a ‘fear of returning to Germany.’ Evidently, Sorokin and her family have received numerous threats ‘due to the media coverage of her crimes’ and she fears she will be ‘retaliated against for embarrassing her country.’
Sorokin’s application for asylum was denied in June 2021, but she quickly appealed. Despite her lawyer’s many attempts to get her released on bond while she awaits a final decision on her appeal, Sorokin remained in custody in Orange County Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
She tested positive for COVID-19 in January and spent more than a week in quarantine isolation. ‘I’m sure I’ll live, but I haven’t been this sick in years,’ wrote Sorokin in an article published by Insider.”
When was Anna Sorokin released from prison?
Let’s cut right to the chase: No, Anna Sorokin is not still in prison. At least, not the same prison she was in when she was first sentenced back in 2019. Sorokin was released from there on parole in February 2021, after serving 3 years in her 4-to-12-year sentence. The reason for her early release? Good behavior.
Immediately after she was released, Sorokin settled her debts. She used a portion of the $320,000 she received from Netflix for the rights to her life story to pay back the $200,000 she owed the banks. She coughed up an additional $25,000 to pay New York state fines.
With her debts settled, she checked into the NoMad Hotel in downtown Manhattan and resumed posting glam shots of her post-prison life on Instagram. She gave countless interviews and made a few bold statements about her experience in prison.
On Good Morning America, she claimed her time in Rikers was ‘therapeutic.’ She rented an apartment in Manhattan and began promoting a potential new fashion collaboration with former Hood By Air designer Paul Cupo. She checked in with her parole officer regularly. Obviously, she hired a videographer to document her new life.”
Anna Sorokin deported yet?
Anna Sorokin’s story revisited in Netflix’s “Inventing Anna.” And More.
NYTimes earlier takes on Sorokin:
- ‘Inventing Anna’: The mini-series by Shonda Rhimes works as a clichéd morality tale but stumbles as a piece of storytelling, writes our critic.
Fiction vs. Reality: A reporter who covered Ms. Sorokin’s trial in 2019 for The Times explains what the series gets right (and wrong). - A Serial Scammer: Ms. Sorokin, a Russian immigrant, pretended to be a German heiress, swindling New York’s elite out of more than $200,000.
She Is Not Sorry: In interviews with The Times, Ms. Sorokin was eager to explain her actions as the missteps of a naïve young woman. - (Con) Artist:“Free Anna Delvey,” Ms. Sorokin’s first group gallery exhibition, features reproductions of drawings she made while incarcerated. ere is what she said about her art making process.
The Fake Heiress Who Conned New York’s Wealthy.
‘Saturday Night Live’ skit.
Here’s SNL’s “proof” that there’s indeed never a dull moment in Sorokin’s life. SNL comic Chloe Fineman reinvents herself for 3+minutes as Sorokin. Enjoy!
Let me know if you enjoyed this blog, and especially the SNL skit.
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Great descriptions of Anna. Feel like I almost know her.