If you’ve turned on the TV or skimmed an issue of the New York Post recently you’re likely to have seen the scandalous story of Anna Sorokin, a con artist posing as a New York socialite named Anna Delvey. After X years jet setting the globe on “borrowed” money, checking into prestigious hotels and scamming friends and banks out of over $200,000, Sorokin was charged and convicted in 2019 of “four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny”, reports the BBC. She was released from prison earlier this year and, as a Russian-born German national, now faces deportation.
During the scam, Sorokin convinced wealthy friends to cover the costs of transatlantic trips citing a non-existent $60 million trust fund, used fake documents to manipulate her into bank to giving her a $100,000 overdraft, and fraudulently applied for a $22 million loan for an art foundation she wanted to launched. The case got a tremendous amount of media attention after an explosive New York Magazine article and is now being transformed into a Netflix docuseries.
While still an inmate at Rikers Island, Netflix approached Sorokin to buy the rights to her story for a highly-anticipated series that is set to air in February 2022. Records show that the movie streaming giant paid $320,000 for Sorokin’s story, which brought the Son of Sam law into question, a New York law intended to prevent convicted criminals from profiting from their crimes. Instead of collecting on the full payment, $170,000 were used to pay back the banks she owed.
Sorokin said in a recent interview with BBC that she’s turned her focus to “writing my book, I have my NFT project, and my merch, and [I am working on] prison reform”. We will continue to keep tabs on this case, as it is likely that prosecutors may also try to block her collection of profits from these ventures.
