Anna Sorokin, the New York influencer whose $2.75m million scam inspired the Netflix hit Inventing Anna, showed off her court-ordered ankle monitor on Wednesday in her first US TV interview since being put on house arrest.
“I’m getting used to it,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “They tightened it up a little bit, so it’s not dangling as it used to.”
Sorokin, whose exploits as fictitious socialite Anna Delvey were splashed across tabloids and newspapers across the US, was released last week from immigration to confinement in her New York apartment, as she fights a potential deportation order to Germany.
She’s not allowed to leave the home except under certain conditions, she said on Wednesday.
“I’m supposed to check in with my criminal parole and my ICE officers, but otherwise no,” she said.
She’s also reportedly not allowed to post on social media.
To pass the time, she’s been planning to make a podcast and painting. During her interview on Wednesday, a large work of hers could be seen in the background, a fake newspaper with the title the “Delvey Crimes.”
According to her lawyers, she is hoping to challenge both her deportation order for overstaying her visa and her underlying criminal conviction.
“We are figuring it out now,” she added in her interview on Wednesday.
The infamous scammer has said she never expected to be released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
“Nothing was guaranteed. They denied bail before. It was an exercise in perseverance,” Sorokin told The New York Times. “So many immigration lawyers told me I’d get deported to Mars before I’d get out in New York. And I just had to find the person who [wouldn’t] accept ‘no’ for an answer and make it happen.”
The judge who ordered Sorokin’s release found that her status “as a public figure” made it difficult for her to avoid detention, and her “risk of flight [is] sufficiently mitigated”, according to filings obtained by The Daily Beast.
Since returning home, Sorokin has continued to apologise for her elaborate scam.
“I feel so sorry for a lot of the choices I’ve made,” she said on CNN on Wednesday. “I also feel like I’ve learned so much and grew as a person.”
