Fake German heiress Anna “Delvey” Sorokin has given her first interview since her release from prison on house arrest. Speaking to The New York Times, the convicted scammer insisted that she’s not a “shallow person who only cares about obscene wealth” and revealed whether she will “glam” up her ankle bracelet during house arrest.
Sorokin – who ran her scams under the fake surname Delvey – was released from the Orange County Detention Center over the weekend, where she had spent 18 months fighting her deportation after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested her for overstaying her visa. Now, the Russian-born scammer has returned to New York City where she remains on house arrest with a monitor attached to her ankle.
When asked by New York Times reporter Emily Palmer whether she will “glam up” her ankle bracelet, Sorokin replied: “I’m not a glam-it-up type of person, but the possibilities are endless.”
The 31-year-old, who is the subject of the hit Netflix drama series Inventing Anna, also explained to the Times that she fought her immigration case while in ICE custody because she didn’t want people to think that she only cared about “obscene wealth” and couldn’t handle time behind bars.
“I just did not want it to go down the way ICE wanted it to,” she said. “Letting them deport me would have been like a sign of capitulation – confirmation of this perception of me as this shallow person who only cares about obscene wealth, and that’s just not the reality.”
“I could have left, but I chose not to because I’m trying to fix what I’ve done wrong. I have so much history in New York and I felt like if I were in Europe, I’d be running from something,” Sorokin added. “But if jail does not prove people wrong, then what will?”
In 2019, the Russian-born scammer was convicted of fraud and grand larceny after she posed as a rich German heiress and successfully conned friends and big banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars under the name Anna Delvey.
Between 2013 and 2017, the con artist also used social media to further document her life of luxury by posting photographs of expensive meals, shopping sprees, and holiday trips to her Instagram. Despite being in jail, Sorokin appeared to have access to her Instagram account, @theannadelvey, and continued to post since Inventing Anna premiered on Netflix last February.
However, one of the stipulations of Sorokin’s house arrest is that she must remain off social media. During her first interview since her release from ICE custody, Sorokin admitted that staying off social media is perhaps for the best, although she hopes it’s not forever.
“Maybe that’s for the best? It’s really hard to tune out distractions. Hopefully, it’s not forever,” she told the Times.
At her trial in 2019, Sorokin was found guilty of stealing an estimated $275,000 from hotels, banks, and other institutions. She was released from prison in February 2021, before being taken back into ICE custody for violating the terms of her visa.
