Inventing Anna, from showrunner and executive producer Shonda Rhimes, chronicles the breathtakingly strange story of fake heiress Anna Delvey.
Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, scammed her way into elite New York circles by posing as a wealthy German heiress with plans to open up a Soho House-esque club for artists. As detailed in a 2018 New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler, Sorokin’s house of cards crumbled after she failed to pay her bill at the boutique hotel 11 Howard. She subsequently racked up thousands of dollars in other unpaid bills and bank loans, and cashed a number of bad checks, which finally let to her arrest in October of 2017.
Inventing Anna concludes with Sorokin’s 2019 trial, where she was convicted of most of the charges against her. Here’s what happened next.
In 2019, Sorokin was sentenced to four to 12 years in state prison.
In May of 2019, after a trial that drew buzz thanks to Sorokin’s attention-grabbing court wardrobe, a judge sentenced her to four to 12 years in prison. She was convicted of defrauding hotels, restaurants, banks, and a private jet operator out of more than $200,000, according to The Guardian.
Per the outlet, Sorokin had delayed the proceedings several times by throwing tantrums and drawing “unflattering sketches of the lead prosecutor during testimony.” But at her sentencing hearing she appeared to be more contrite, and said: “I apologize for the mistakes I made.”
Sorokin had been incarcerated at Rikers Island in the run-up to her trial. After her sentencing, she was sent to the Albion Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
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She was released early in 2021.
In October of 2020, Sorokin apologized and expressed remorse during a parole hearing. “I just want to say that I’m really ashamed and I’m really sorry for what I did,” she said, per a transcript quoted by the New York Post. “I completely understand that a lot of people suffered when I thought I was not doing anything wrong.”
Sorokin had previously given an interview to The New York Times in which she expressed no remorse whatsoever. “The thing is, I’m not sorry,” she told the paper in the 2019 story. “I’d be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything.” When these flippant remarks came up at her parole hearing, Sorokin claimed that the reporter had “completely twisted” her words and taken her out of context.
Asked how she had been spending her time in prison, Sorokin responded: “Culinary arts, I did a lot of yoga and meditation and participated in a debate project.”
Four months later, in February of 2021, Sorokin was released on parole after serving almost four years. Her sentenced had been shortened for good behavior.
She used her earnings from Netflix to pay back the money she stole.
According to Insider, Sorokin was a paid consultant on Inventing Anna. She met with Julia Garner, who plays her in the series, but it’s not clear what else her role on the show entailed.
The state of New York invoked the rarely-used 1977 “Son of Sam” law to ensure Sorokin couldn’t receive any of the Netflix money. Named for 1970s serial killer David Berkowitz, the law prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes. But Sorokin was permitted to use her earnings from the show to pay back almost $200,000 in restitution to various banks.
After her release, Sorokin reportedly also sought to appeal the charges against her, with her attorney claiming that her actions amounted to “a civil dispute and do not rise to the level of a crime.” She told Insider that prison had been “a huge waste of time,” and insisted that she’d had a legitimate business plan that she’d never had the chance to execute.
Sorokin briefly had a Twitter account after her release.
Sorokin, a one-time Instagram addict, wasted no time getting back into the social media game. Just days after her release, she created a new Twitter account using the name Anna Delvey, and tweeted out the Manhattan District Attorney’s press release about her conviction with the comment: “Good job @ManhattanDA.” As of February 2022, the account is suspended. But her new Instagram account, “Anna Delvey 2.0,” is still active.
She also gave an interview to 20/20 after her release. When ABC News senior national affairs correspondent Deborah Roberts asked her the million dollar question (“Who is the real Anna Sorokin?”) she responded: “That’s a loaded question. I would like to show the world that I’m not this dumb, greedy person that they portrayed me to be.”
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As of February 2022, Sorokin is back in custody.
At the time of Sorokin’s conviction, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated that it would seek to deport her after she’d served her time. Sorokin, who was born in Russia and grew up in Germany, had reportedly overstayed a 2017 visa prior to her arrest.
After her release, Sorokin reportedly had a few weeks as a free woman in New York. During this time, per Insider, she signed a lease on a Manhattan apartment, and began developing deals for a fashion line and media projects.
But on March 25, 2021, Sorokin was taken into ICE custody as the considered whether to deport her back to Germany. An immigration judge declined to release her the following month, agreeing with an ICE attorney who argued that Sorokin’s Instagram posts show that she wasn’t rehabilitated. She’s been in ICE custody ever since, and her attorney has filed a motion asking immigration authorities to grant her asylum.
In February of 2022, Sorokin wrote an essay for Insider detailing her anger and disappointment about being incarcerated, her experience of contracting COVID-19 behind bars, and her mixed feelings about the release of Inventing Anna.
“While the world is pondering Julia Garner’s take on my accent in Inventing Anna, a Netflix show about me, the real me sits in a cell in Orange County’s jail in upstate New York, in quarantine isolation,” Sorokin wrote (but neglected to mention the $320,000 she’d been paid by Netflix for her consulting work on the series). “My visa overstay was unintentional and largely out of my control. I served my prison sentence, but I’m appealing my criminal conviction to clear my name. I did not break a single one of New York state’s or ICE’s parole rules. Despite all that, I’ve yet to be given a clear and fair path to compliance.”
Sorokin’s future remains in limbo, with her asylum request pending.
And, according to a Feb. 11 report from Cosmopolitan, Sorokin has watched episodes of Inventing Anna. She told journalist Emily Palmer, “It’s a good exercise in letting go.”
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