This is Deborah Roberts. Welcome to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Each week, we reach back into our archives and bring you a story we found unforgettable. You broke her teeth. You broke her bones.
Poisons that you could use that would be undetectable.
Oh my goodness. What have you done? Take a listen. It's pretty clear to everybody you've dealt with that there is no money, that you're no German heiress. Were you living a lie?
Anna's story is a story that actually novels are made of.
A globe trotting life of glitz and glamor for 1 woman masquerading as an heiress.
She woke up 1 morning, and she decided to be somebody else.
Somebody must have started the idea that she was an heiress. And who would have started that
besides Anna? It was the Kardashian lifestyle.
The wannabe socialite becomes a tabloid sensation.
I certainly wish I had never met her.
Rachel fell hook, line, and sinker for the narrative that she was in line to inherit tens of 1,000,000 of dollars.
She owed me more money than
I need in a year.
For paying me my money.
This was really high drama, seeing these 2 women coming face to face together in a courtroom.
Many people see you as the ultimate scammer. Are you scamming us?
They got scammed?
Pay me my money.
It was very cold, and it was snowing when we drove up to the prison.
February
11th.
11th, you walked out of prison. A free woman.
Hi, Anna.
What did that feel like?
It felt great. It's exciting to be out, and I'm really happy.
Put your feet on. What was the first thing you did?
They brought me my phone, so I got on social media.
She immediately goes back to both Instagram and Twitter.
We drove with her, like, 7 hours to New York. Her intent was to go back to her life.
She called herself Anna Delvey, who prosecutors say was pretending to be a high flying German heiress living a fairy tale life among Manhattan's elite.
Let me
just have you say, pronounce, and spell your name, please.
My name is Anna Delvey, a n n a d e l v e y.
How would you describe the real Anna Delvey? Who is she?
Oh, that's a loaded question.
The wannabe socialite is actually on trial for swindling 100 of 1,000 of dollars.
Prosecutors say the 28 year old stole $275,000 from banks, hotels, and friends.
A German con artist artist has been sentenced to a minimum of 4 years in prison.
This is a story about a woman who pretended to be someone that she's not.
She woke up 1 morning and she decided to be somebody else, and she actually became that person.
Anna is a tricky woman to describe. She is like no 1 I've ever met before. She is the slipperiest of slippery fish, I would say.
Anna's story is a story that actually novels are made of. You envision a story like this, but this is not really a real life scenario.
Anna was in her early twenties when she showed up in New York City from Paris back in 2013. She had come from a middle class background. She had no job. But somehow, once she was here through a combination of deception and assumptions, people got the impression that she was wealthy.
She was really taking people for an absolute ride. She didn't do an honest day's work in her life in New York. The way she was living, dishing out a $100 tips, living out of hotels, she was suddenly living like she had that sort of money.
She would tip the cab driver a $100 in cash and make sure everybody saw it.
She was living at these high end hotels. How she supported that, I have no idea. She just didn't give a At the end of the day, that's what this is about.
If I do it, no 1 will care. Who would arrest me?
I don't think anybody could place Anna's accent. You weren't really sure where Anna was from, but she was from somewhere else. Very active on Instagram and Twitter. She would take pictures when she was on planes or at a nice dinner. Her Instagram account actually helped build her image.
I think for her, it was more like you fake it until you make it.
The impression is that you're kind of like sliding through life and you don't have to sign for anything and people just kinda let you do what you want.
I guess, yes.
So if you're creating the illusion that you have a certain amount of money, even though you don't, did you see that as a problem?
Not at the time.
But it would soon become a big problem, a criminal matter. The trouble began when Anna set her sights on this historic building in midtown Manhattan. As outrageous as it sounds, this young unemployed newcomer with no business experience believed that she could fake her way into getting the 1,000,000 of dollars necessary to turn it into her dream come true.
So her plan was kind of like a members only club, a very high end members only club. Arts, fashion, entertainment, music, restaurants, everything in 1 place. The name of this was the Anna Delvey Foundation, ADF.
Anna needed money for her, business venture. As she thinks that money is out there, you just have to find a way to get it.
She was meeting with big, important
leaders of industry. It was gonna cost about $40,000,000 to
build, and industry. It was gonna cost about $40,000,000 to build, and Anna had about $4. How did they treat you,
this young 20 something, with these grand ideas for a project? I feel they were encouraging
me.
It kind of helps for them to think, like, that I have more money than them.
At some point, somebody must have started the idea that she was an heiress. And who would have started that besides Anna?
Did you tell people that you were an heiress?
Absolutely not.
A lot of times, people have maybe rich and have a personal wealth, but of course, if they have a business venture, they don't wanna use their own personal money for it. So they go to a bank and they wanna have a business loan.
Anna went to the most premier investment banks in New York without a dollar to her name. The bankers were seduced by the glitz and glam. She came up and they're stunting. She came in there with the right clothes and they were like, I love it. Let's do it.
There was something about Anna. She knew which people she needed to make feel important. And she also had this sort of aura about her where she's intriguing, and she used that.
How did you meet Anna Delvey?
I met her out 1 night in New York. I was out with friends, and she just joined us late that evening.
Do you regret you met her?
Absolutely. I certainly wish I had never met her.
Rachel Deloatch Williams was a picture editor at Vanity Fair Magazine.
What were your first impressions?
She was slightly offbeat. She was quirky. Her voice was high pitched, she had a hard to place accent, and there was something about her you kind of just wanted to watch because you couldn't put your finger on it.
They were both young, they were both in their twenties, they both recently moved to New York, and they wanted to be in circles that they didn't really belong to.
I liked her, and so we had a lot of fun together.
She was just a nice girl, and I felt she was sweet, and she was interesting at the time to me.
So these 2 formed a friendship. And Anna portrayed herself as having a lot of money and living a very lavish lifestyle, and Rachel was into that.
You would pay for things mostly when you 2 went out. Why?
Well, she gave me an impression that she only made whatever 60 or $70,000 a year. It's not a big deal for me to, like, pick up a tab, which is a couple of $100. I felt it was a nice thing to do.
She and I spent some time going to dinners and hanging out. During that time, I learned that she was working on an art foundation, club, restaurant, just everything. And the concept was very interesting and impressive and she'd referred to this family trust she had, which I didn't pry about, but it sort of informed my understanding of her.
So it was pretty casual, but you figured she had money. Yes.
Rachel fell hook, line, and sinker for the narrative that she was in line to inherit tens of 1,000,000 of dollars.
She would later on say, she just assumed you were a socialite.
I never say it's like, hey, I'm Anna. I'm a socialite. Like, who says that?
Rachel didn't know that her life was about to change. She trusted Anna and she truly believed that she was rich.
People have asked were there red flags. They never questioned that she was who she said she was. I never had reason to, and I wouldn't have thought that way.
But she would soon learn that not everything was what it seemed. I mean, not even Anna's last name. Delby? She made that up. Her real name was Sorokin.
Where's the name Delby come from?
No. I just came up with that.
You just made it up?
Yes.
It's not a family name? No. You just like that better than Sorokin?
Yes.
Whether you're talking about Anna Sorokin or Anna Delby, she does not like to follow the rules.
This is the first time you've sat
down for a television interview. Yeah. Why are you talking with us?
Why not? I would like to show the world that I'm not this dumb, greedy person that they portrayed me to be. Little did she know that
This woman is so adept to being a criminal, it's not funny.
I've never seen a show quite like the story of Sarah King.
She conned people out of $10,000,000. But infamy
comes with a price.
If we don't have our money by tomorrow morning, you will be gutted like a fish in Newport Harbor.
Lady Mafia, available now on the Bins. Search for Lady Mafia wherever you get your podcast to start listening today.
50 years ago, a young woman named Karen Silkwood got into her car alone.
She was reportedly on her way to deliver sensitive documents to a New York Times reporter.
She never made it. And those documents she'd agreed to carry were never found.
Do you think somebody killed her?
There's no question in my mind if someone killed her that night. I think they are trying to stop her in order to get the documents.
A new investigation into the life and death of America's first nuclear whistleblower.
Listen to Radioactive, the Karen Silkwood mystery from ABC Audio. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
Since Anna was was a German citizen, she needed to leave every 3 months in order to reset the visa. And instead of going back home to Germany, she suggested we take a trip somewhere warm.
They just somehow had this idea to go to Morocco. It seemed to be a nice destination. Cheers.
Me and Rachel, like, kinda brainstormed where we should stay. We came up with La la Maimonia in Marrakesh.
Okay. And they also brought along a, a film guy.
She said that she wanted to make a documentary while we were there about her art foundation and its creation. And she sort of framed it within this business expense. Cheers. And a d. Mhmm.
And a
d. And I was thinking ahead. I wanna get money for my art foundation. If I film myself being in Morocco, if I can afford this, then I must be loaded. I must have money.
This is some stunning, top of the line, like, dripping in gold resort with butlers and private everything. It's a resort that's built for the 1%.
Khloe Kardashian has stayed there once upon a time quite a few decades before that. Winston Churchill would regularly stay there. You know, this is where the great and the uber wealthy have hung out for decades.
Your eyes must have been popping out of your head.
Absolutely. It was, I mean, it was amazing until it wasn't.
Anna Freud from the get go said that she's paying.
Why are you treating everybody? A $7,000 a night room.
Well, I had the money, I guess, at the time when I booked it, and I guess they gave me an impression that they pre authorized my card or something like that.
So the trip is going along. They're living it up. I'm not sure why Anna had issues paying, but for whatever reason, her credit cards were not working.
Anna claims that her credit cards aren't going through because she hasn't given the banks the heads up that she's gonna be in a foreign country, so her banks have blocked it, which is just the type of thing that would happen. And it seems a kind of credible reason.
So the hotel isn't getting any payment, and the bill is getting astronomical.
So now, you have a tab of $60 +1000?
Yes.
So they came and they said, listen, what's going on? Time to pay.
Well, of course there
is a scene at this hotel.
2 of the hotel workers were not gonna let these women move until they they had a working credit card.
There was just this insane pressure and tension in the room.
And I
was very aware of us being young women in a foreign country. I just didn't know what to do.
It's like, oh my god, you know, nobody wants to go to jail.
And I guess, especially not in Morocco. And the
men say, do you have a credit card? So I not in Morocco. And the men say,
do you
have a credit card? So I look at Anna and she's like, can we just use it for now? Anna wasn't thinking much. She was like, well, the money is gonna come and of course
I'm gonna pay Rachel back. For Rachel, however, it was just really a very scary situation.
She hands over her personal card and she also hands over her corporate card. It makes me feel nauseous, how terrifying that must be. You know, your job is now on the line.
Rachel just footed the bill for both of them, is is what really happened. And this was a for sure in their friendship, for sure.
She owed me more money than I made in a year.
She's reaching out to you to pay her back. Do you know that she is beside herself with worry about the card?
Yeah. She she was telling me that every day, all day.
You're texting Anna. No reimbursement. What are you thinking?
I'm thinking this is a rich girl who has never had to deal with monthly bills. She just doesn't understand what an urgent situation I'm in. You know, I am late with my rent. I'm late with my credit card payments. Every night I'm awake in bed thinking, oh, this is serious.
I'm, like, in a lot of trouble.
At this stage, you don't have the money to pay Rachel. No. How was she responding?
She had a a 1000000000 and 1 excuses. I was suspicious at that point.
Anna paid Rachel $5,000 through PayPal, but that caused problems. I guess PayPal or American Express stopped the credit card, so she was not able to access any further funds. Anna relied on her credit card to pay things, so she wasn't able to fulfill other obligations like a hotel bill.
July 2017, she is arrested for the first time, and it's for theft of services. And it relates to 3 things in New York. Unpaid bills at the Beakman, at the W Hotel, and at Le Parc and Meridian.
The day I met her, she had 1 open misdemeanor criminal case. I come to find out that there's a number of criminal investigations and active cases against Anna for unpaid bills. Hotels, restaurants, other things of that nature.
It's her first arrest and everything really starts to kind of unravel.
And that's when this story hits the New York Post. The wannabe socialite becomes a tabloid sensation.
You're beginning to make the press. There are newspaper headlines. What did you make of that?
I guess it's just what people like to hear. They just looked at my Instagram, and this is what they, like, reality that they created.
You eventually go to the district attorney's office, and what do you learn?
I read that there is an ongoing investigation into Anna Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin.
But, of course, Anna, she doesn't wanna stop living the life just yet.
After her arraignment, she ditches, and she goes to California.
The district attorney is trying to track her down, and you wanna be helpful in this. Yes.
If she did this to me and I was her friend, she would do it to anybody, and I just wanted to protect other people.
And Rachel set her up.
Suddenly, the gullible fool is no longer so foolish. So they're messaging back and forth, but every single time that Anna messages Rachel, Rachel is screenshotting it and sending it straight to the DA.
She was in touch with me, like, for about a week. Like, just asked me how I was doing and, like, just pretending, like, nothing was
off. She had asked if we could get together, so I asked her if she could meet me at a restaurant, in Los Angeles, and we set a time.
That's where actually Anna was headed to when she was arrested.
So you're arrested, big air? Yes. What did you think? What did you feel?
I was surprised.
I was still afraid. I was afraid she'd find out that it was me.
Rachel sends a message to Anna saying, I'm at the restaurant. Kind of, where are you? Is everything okay? Because she didn't want Anna at that point to know that that she had played her. But she did.
She played her like an absolute fiddle.
At this moment, it's pretty clear to everybody you've dealt with that there is no money, that you're no German heiress. Were you living a lie?
I don't feel I was. No.
If Anna wasn't living a lie, what was she living? The prosecution has quite the case to make to a jury to try to prove just how fake this would be heiress actually was.
Just watch me fake it, fake it. Till I make it, make it.
Hi. I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number 1 true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend, Britt, break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.
Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts.
In the dry states of the southwest, there's a group that's been denied a basic human right.
In the Navajo Nation today, a third of our households don't have running water.
But that's not something they chose for themselves. Can the Navajo people reclaim their right to water and contend with the government's legacy of control and neglect?
Our water, our beauty. Our water, our beauty.
That's in the next season of reclaimed, the lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
Been masquerading as an Arab.
A German con artist.
The young woman who duped banks and New Yorkers out of 100 of 1,000 of dollars.
The wannabe socialized. Falsified bank records forged her identity.
Pretending to be a high flying German heiress.
This lavish lifestyle that Anna had been living, it all comes crashing down when the FBI bring her back to New York. Her lodgings are Rikers Correctional Facility.
You were taken to Rikers Island, 1 of the most frightening jails in the country. What was that like for you? Were you terrified?
Actually, I had no idea about Rikers. I was really upset at the time. Yeah. I just, like, learned to deal with it.
The nature of her crimes meant it was easy for the judge to not, grant an avail.
You're there for 19 months?
Yes.
Did you feel that you were in danger ever?
Not physically, no. I was just lucky I never, like, met anyone who was awful to me.
While at Rikers Island, Anna survived unscathed. I've said this before, Anna is very charismatic and charming.
Did you have celebrity status in jail?
I definitely did. Yes.
And then you strike a Netflix deal.
Sorkin's case even capturing Hollywood's attention. Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes behind an upcoming project for Netflix.
She was offered over $300,000 for the deal.
So you're essentially making money off of this. I mean, was it a kind of a joke to you?
No. Not really. Not at all. I mean, it all kind of happened. And and even if I were to get, like, 100,000,000 from Netflix, Netflix, like, my life and jail would not have changed.
You were still behind bars.
Absolutely. Definitely.
Anna was offered a plea bargain of 3 to 9 years to resolve all of the criminal liability, And she ultimately rejected it and said, I'd rather go to trial. I'd rather roll the dice. Let's go.
I wanted to go to trial just like it was I felt like it was the only way to tell my story.
Most people go to trial to be to be found not guilty. She went to trial for the story.
Now facing charges of grand larceny and theft, she could spend up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
She knew that the world's media were focusing the spotlight on her, and there was no way that she was gonna look bad at trial.
Sorkin always looking glamorous on her social media pages. Her defense team even hiring a stylist to help her prepare for court appearances.
She was wearing Victoria Beckham and Michael Kors. The choker became such a look. There was so much media attention on what she was looking like.
I felt like I knew my trial is going to last for a while, and, you don't really get any clothes.
But, Anna, what defendant has clothes brought in by a stylist?
I
don't know. I had never had the I didn't have Internet at the time to compare myself to other defendants, so I just kind of did what made sense at the time. It just
really exemplified how focused she is on vanity and narcissism and putting on a show.
The prosecution, of course, told the jury that Anna was living a double life and used her lies to cheat Banks and even her personal friend Rachel out of a lot of money.
Prosecutors said that your story was lie after lie after lie. That's what they told the jury.
I mean, of course, they would say something like this. That's their job to accuse me of all crimes.
Remember, Anna was supposed to be opening this arts foundation. She went to banks and told them she had money overseas.
What were you expected to provide as proof that you have these 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars overseas?
Like a bank statement, a letter of credit from the bank.
So Anna was definitely really starting to, spin the lies at this point and stepping up her con a level. She was creating fake documents to try and persuade bankers that she was worth around €60,000,000.
So Anna was charged with certain crimes that had evidence that we couldn't dispute. The fake documents were the fake documents. We were stuck with them. There's nothing we could do about it.
These documents were very realistic. I would have fallen for it, and obviously, the bankers did too.
Anna never testified in court. And during our interview, her lawyer wouldn't let her answer many of my questions about those dealings with the banks. The impression that they get from documents is that you have a lot of money in accounts. Was that by design?
Yes.
So you wanted them to think that you had a lot of money to put up?
The first 1 is fine. Don't answer the second 1.
Did you have that amount of money in overseas accounts?
I can't answer that.
And how do you come up with bank statements?
I can't answer that.
How were you able to falsify documents?
My lawyer would not allow me to answer that.
From my review of the evidence, there was really no direct link between her and the documents. So that's why I did not want her to answer.
The banks never gave Anna the loans, but she did get a line of credit. And prosecutors say she used that money and bad checks in order to fund her lavish lifestyle.
When you look at the evidence that the prosecution presented, it looks like this was a scam.
But there are different ways to tell a story.
The other way to tell the story is that Anna had every intention of doing things the right way, but she couldn't open certain doors without doing something a little bit gray to open that door. Everyone creates the version of themselves that they want the world to see. Everyone is lying a little bit. Everyone lies when it's convenient to them. Some more than others, but we all do it.
And Anna did the same thing. She couldn't be a 100% honest because no 1 would listen to it.
Your lawyer at the time said that you did nothing wrong, that you exploited a system easily seduced by glitz and glamor, that you told little white lies. Is that what happened?
Yes. That's the way I see it too.
Anna is accused essentially of misleading people to think that she had more money than she has. Isn't that what all of us do everyday when we use a credit card to buy something we can't afford? Where's the crime?
I never had a fraudulent intent and I guess that's what should really count.
When did you begin to realize that you could not afford your life and pay people back?
I always knew that, and I was just always trying to fix that.
But the 1 thing Anna couldn't fix was the actual truth behind her identity. Who was this heiress and where did she come from? Surely not from wealth.
Christine Herron was 15 years old in the spring of 1993 when she disappeared. And in over 30 years, there has been no trace of her.
I did know before the night was over, she was dead though.
A story of murder and heartbreak and investigative error.
He was 90 percent sure he was gonna be convicted.
From CBC podcasts, I'm David Ricken. And this is Someone Knows Something season 9, the Christine Herron case. Available now.
Elon Musk is 1 of the most powerful men in the world. A billionaire, a free speech champion, and to his critics, a far right rabble rouser. But for someone so public, there's 1 part of his life that's less well known.
So he told people that Elon Musk had put private investigators on him.
From Tortoise, this is Elon Spies, a journey into Musk's private world. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and follow the feed to make sure you don't miss an episode.
Everyone
was expectant. Everyone wanted to hear from Rachel. That's what the DA actually that was intentional, you know, to have Rachel as the poster child of this trial to make it more human.
This was really high drama, seeing these 2 women, former friends, coming face to face together in a courtroom.
You had not seen Anna for a long time. What was it like when you walked in that courtroom to testify?
It was really hard. I didn't look at her until I was on the stand and was asked to identify the defendant. And then when I did look at her, she was smirking at me. I had a friend who turned out to be not at all who she said she was.
If she wasn't born an heiress, then who exactly was she? The woman who claimed to be Anna Delvey was actually born Anna Sorokin, far from the skyscrapers of Manhattan, in a small town in Russia. You were born in Russia? Yes. What was your childhood like?
Were you happy?
Yes. I like I grew up, as a single child until my parents had another kid when I was almost 13, so I kinda see myself as a single child because I grew up by myself.
How did you wind up in Germany as a family?
Well, my dad always worked in Germany, so, we just moved with him at some point.
Anna lived in Germany in Ashwiler, which is, as Anna would say, more like upstate New York. To her, it was very boring.
What did your parents do?
My dad, he is like in infrared, heating, solar energy business right now.
And your mom?
My mom, she's working with him.
Hardworking people, good people, but certainly not Roland Doe.
She clearly felt she was above it and was a woman who dreamed far bigger than her her horizons.
Those dreams would eventually lead to Paris. Following her lifelong interest in fashion, she eventually got a position at a glossy magazine called Purple. And Anna Sorokin morphed into Anna Delvey.
I interned at Purple for almost 2 years, which was a great learning experience, but I always thought, like, I'd be working for Vogue or something like this. We
all watched The Devil Wears Prada, so I could imagine that her job was similar to that.
I really did everything I could think of. That's all.
If you work for a magazine like that, you meet everyone, kinda like in the fashion world, and that's what she did. Anna created this name Anna Delvey, which is for her an alter ego. Just another personality that she could present to the outside world.
Were you trying to escape something?
I think it was about a new beginning and doing something new as opposed to, like, escaping anything.
Escape or no escape, next thing you know, Anna crosses the ocean. She jumps into New York, becomes Anna Delvey, this larger than life persona.
And that's when she began telling everybody about the idea for that art center, the Anna Delvey Foundation, and she had to come up with money to make it happen. Everything after that leads back to that courtroom in lower Manhattan. And Rachel taking the stand in an emotional moment telling about that trip to Morocco.
Anna Sorokin claimed to be worth about $67,000,000
convincing people she was the daughter of a diplomat.
Stealing more than $200 and attempting to steal 1,000,000 more through elaborate scams.
What was that like for you as you watched her, your friend
Yeah.
Testifying against you?
I knew she didn't really wanna be there, and they made her do it. She literally did not glance at me once except to like us to identify the defendant.
Rachel gets on the stand and bursts into sobs and says, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life.
She said, what was I supposed to do? I didn't wanna sit in jail and be in Morocco for months or even years. I believe, Rachel, that it was the most traumatic, moment in her life.
I I understand the word trauma is, you know, the is relative. To have someone that I had put so much goodwill into turn out to just be like a liar and who had willfully hurt me was very painful.
How are you gonna get on the witness stand and say this is the worst thing that ever happened? The woman sold her story across the board. She literally was like, what's up? I got the story. Who wants it?
There are some people who would say you benefited from her greed. They don't see you as a victim.
I understand that, but this isn't something that was worth it to me. This was not my plan. This is not something I I would recommend for anybody.
Despite her testimony and how traumatic this experience was for her, on cross examination, Rachel had to admit that ultimately, she didn't pay that hotel bill and she made a lot of money on this story. She wrote a book about it and she has a movie deal as a result.
She volunteered to give the card. End of story. I'm empathetic to how Rachel felt. That's not the issue. The issue is whether Anna committed a crime by doing it.
Remember, the charges against Anna go a lot farther than just that 1 situation with Rachel. No matter what the jurors think about Rachel, as deliberations begin, the big question is, what do they think about Anna?
-This morning, the fate of an alleged scam artist is now in the hands of a jury.
What are you feeling as the jury is deliberating?
A fella was, like, a great indicator that it took almost 3 days to decide, so it means, like, it's not something, oh, yeah. She's full of move in order to find her guilty. So I guess it just, like, speaks volumes. It's, like, how I came across.
We hoped for the best but planned for the worst.
A New York City jury finding socialite Anna Sorokin, a so called SoHo grifter, guilty on 8 counts, including grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, and theft of services.
When you hear guilty, what do you think?
I mean, just deal with the consequences. Why? I was supposed to collapse and cry. I don't know.
I would.
Well, I had like 100 cameras in my face, so I don't know.
Ultimately, it was a mixed verdict. Some counts they convicted her on and 2 counts they acquitted her on.
Sorokin was acquitted of 2 charges, including the most serious, attempting to steal a $1,000,000 from a bank. Still, she faces deportation and up to 15 years in prison.
Were you crushed?
I was upset. I guess I felt like a bit misunderstood, but I felt like Rachel was a good victory.
Despite Rachel's emotional testimony, the jury did not find Anna guilty for the alleged theft that $62,000 bill at the hotel in Morocco.
I think the jury would have liked to care about Rachel. If she had gone on the stand and said, look, like, I got caught up. I had no business going on a trip I couldn't pay for myself. This sounded like a lot of fun, and it turned into a nightmare. I think that she could have brought the jury along with her on that.
But there was none of that.
Some of the jurors didn't feel sympathetic for your situation with Anna. How did that feel for you?
Oh, that was that was devastating. It was devastating to have taken the witness stand and to have felt so exposed, and to have shared so publicly something that was so deeply personal and painful for me was extremely hard. And then to have that come out as the takeaway was extremely upsetting.
To the fake heiress sentenced here in New York City today, Anna Sorokin in tears, learning she will spend up to 12 years in prison.
Her ultimate sentence was 4 to 12 years state prison.
In addition to her prison sentence, Anna's ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution and an additional $24,000 in fees. But interestingly, Anna's not ordered to pay back Rachel's $62,000 credit card bill.
Did you have to pay that money?
Ultimately, thank thank goodness, American Express did protect me from the hotel charge, which was the bulk of
the expenses. Do you think that her sentence was just?
I am relieved. I think it's appropriate she's doing time for having committed crimes. But I do think that she will continue to manipulate other people for the rest of her life. Even in prison? Absolutely.
In prison. Yes. I think that she has a problem with authority. But I don't I don't suspect that will change in prison or in the future.
After the guilty verdict, you are sent to Albion Correctional Facility.
I actually got on the phone with my lawyer and asking, can I go back to Rikers?
You wanna go back to Rikers? Why?
Because I felt like the beginning is, like always the hardest. Completely new set of people and new inmates.
Anna's story becomes bigger after her incarceration than she ever was before.
And remember that Netflix deal of more than $300,000? Well, it turns out that New York State law won't let Anna profit from her crimes. So that money first has to be used to pay back her victims.
Once the victims were paid, Anna would receive the balance.
On February 11th, after spending just under 4 years of her 4 to 12 year sentence in prison, Anna is released early for good behavior.
You know that I'm the type of girl who goes above and beyond.
She goes straight to a posh hotel in New York City. Anna was intent to continue with her Anna Delvey persona.
After her release, she was told that she could actually stay in America at least for 6 weeks. There was a date at the end of March where she needed to talk to an immigration officer.
I said to her, lay low, get off of parole, sort out your immigration affairs, and then you'll have plenty of time to build whatever you wanna build. But lo and behold, Anna is not 1 to heed my advice, and she decided to do what she wanted to
do. You're just a few weeks out of prison, but yet you're still active on social media.
Yeah. She was skipping interviews on social media, really living the high life, pictures on Instagram of, you know, drinking champagne in a footed tub, and, you know, the whole gamut.
Gannes. I don't break
you. Sins are forgiven.
Gannes even goes so far as to call herself a professional defendant. This doesn't look like a woman who has been through prison and who has learned something from prison. You're casually, happily back on social media.
I mean, this is just like my life, so I'm just trying to channel this attention into something good.
But, Anna, you have people following you on social media who say things like queen and I'm so pleased for you. I mean, it almost seems like this is just sort of a game to you.
I mean, I cannot be responsive over what people say.
This, of course, was not looking like she was actually remorseful and felt sorry.
Well, she ended up in trouble. Some of her media posts were sarcastic. Like, basically, she didn't learn her lesson, you know, she's not remorseful, you know, and when she actually showed up to her appointment at immigration, they apprehended her.
I just think how stupid can you be that you were that indiscreet, you know, she didn't think of the consequences.
I believe that she will be deported.
Anna does not want to go back to Europe.
Anna will fight being deported to Germany tooth and nail. Anna is back in jail, and I think, speaking to somebody who knows her, she is cutting a lonelier figure than ever.
Anna has been held in detention in immigration custody since March. Her lawyer has been trying to get her released.
Anna does not want to go back to Europe.
She had the option to be somebody different, but she kept Anna Delvey. That level of disconnect allows her to sort of operate without, you know, feeling too much ever.
Who is the real Anna Delvey?
I guess it remains to be seen. I'm just trying to, like, rewrite my story.
The next step is to keep fighting. She's resilient and she's determined. I would say that Anna Delvey is not done. Anna Delvey is not going to be deported. Anna Delvey is going to reinvent herself as someone she chooses to be on her terms, and we are going to continue to help her until she says no more.
New York is the ultimate comeback place, but she would have to show real contrition, persuade people to take her seriously. And she's gonna have to do that wherever she goes, but I think maybe she has more of a shot at at it at the city that she didn't do.
I'd love to say the lesson in this story is you can't just lie and get away with it. Anna went to prison. Anna paid some restitution. But I think this story is as old as time. That's part of what draws us to it.
We wanna believe that justice will be served. We wanna believe that
it will deter anybody else from coming along. But there's
always another Anna waiting else from coming along.
But there's always
another Anna waiting in the rafters. Many people see you as the ultimate scammer. Are
you scamming us? No. You tell me. Do you feel scammed?
Do you feel scammed?
Thanks for listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9 on ABC for all new broadcast episodes. See you then.
How Anna Sorokin, known as the "Soho Grifter", had fascinated the world and had conned the highest social circles into believing she was a German heiress worth millions; featuring an interview with Sorokin, following her release from prison
Originally aired: 10/01/2021
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