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Fortune
Fortune
Orianna Rosa Royle

Fake heiress Anna Delvey is back with many new money-making schemes

(Credit: MEGA/GC Images—Getty Images)

After conning Manhattan’s elite it would be easy to assume that Anna “Delvey” Sorokin’s reputation and career would be impossible to recover—however, the fake heiress is already back on her feet with numerous new ventures. 

The convicted fraudster—who shot to fame after a New York magazine profile was turned into the Netflix series Inventing Anna, which detailed her various scams and subsequent arrest—has just been granted the ability to roam freely within 75 miles of her East Village home.

Now, armed with a Social Security number, Sorokin is set to work at New York Fashion Week, which kicks off on Sept. 6.

Despite her lack of industry experience, the ambitious 33-year-old Russian has managed to convince up-and-coming designers to produce their shows through her archly named PR firm, OutLaw Agency, according to multiple outlets. 

The con artist turned PR exec also has a budding career as an influencer and big plans for a media empire, complete with her own memoir, a reality TV show, and a podcast.

Her two-year social media ban (part of her house arrest) only came to an end on August 16, yet Sorokin has already amassed over 1.1 million followers on Instagram alone.

“I’m grateful to be able to control my own narrative again," she told the Daily Mail. “I made mistakes but I’ve grown up and I’m in a different mindset now.” 

“I want to get on with the rest of my life. I hope people will see that I’ve changed and that I’m not the same person, and they’ll give me the opportunity to move on.”

However, she’s used her newfound reach on social media fame to play on her criminal past. 

"I may know a thing or two about deception," Sorokin smirked to the camera while advertising the reality TV series The Anonymous on Instagram. “Trust me, I’d never lie to you.”

“Gaslighting can be a great way to get ahead,” she teased in a second cameo that promotes the new U.S. show.

It’s unclear how much Sorokin has made from her social media partnership.

Fortune has reached out to Sorokin for comment.

Anna Delvey’s also got a memoir and her own docuseries lined up

Having had her life so far played out in the press, various documentaries and on Netflix, now Sorokin wants to set the record straight—and of course, earn some money in the process.

She told the Mail that she is still working on the memoir she started while behind bars. 

“I'm the only person who can tell my story. No one else was with me the whole time, when all those things were happening," Sorokin previously told the publication.

She's also signed on to a new docuseries that will pick up where Inventing Anna left off and showcase her life after prison, courtesy of Surviving R. Kelly’s Bunim/Murray Productions.

According to the Mail, she is also pitching a talk show to production companies.

Meanwhile, a reality show filmed inside her East Village apartment called Delvey's Dinner Club is also in the works to help her shed the con artist label. 

Speaking with Page Six, Sorokin's criminal defense lawyer, Duncan Levin, revealed what to expect: “It's going to be dealing with her art and design and it will deal with her as a person and as a talented artist.”

“We’re down the road on several really interesting opportunities and we are just looking for places where she’ll get a fair shake and where people are willing to give her this opportunity to speak for herself and tell her story,”  Levin explained. 

Last year, the fake heiress also launched her own podcast, The Anna Delvey Show, while under house arrest, which attempted to explore "the preconceived notions of rule breakers" and "tired notions of what's right and wrong," according to its official description.

Sorokin's various attempts to reimagine herself as an influencer come years after she was famously convicted of grand larceny and theft for stealing an estimated $275,000 while posing as a German heiress.

Sorokin infamously spent months duping banks, law firms, hotels, a private jet company, and more before getting arrested in 2017.

She was sentenced to four to 12 years in state prison and released early in 2021 before being taken into ICE custody for overstaying her visa. In October 2022, Sorokin was finally released under house arrest.

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