Netflix Teases Series On Fake Heiress Anna Sorokin — Where NYC’s ‘Biggest Con Woman’ Is Now
She is known as the 'Soho Grifter.'
YouTube / Netflix / Twitter Netflix is releasing a series centered around Anna Delvey, an infamous scammer who conned banks, hotels, and rich acquaintances out of hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2013 and 2017.
The series, ‘Inventing Anna,’ was created by Shonda Rhimes and the show is based on The Cut’s viral 2018 article about Delvey — whose real name is Anna Sorokin.
The teaser for the series was finally released in anticipation for its February 11 premiere with Julia Garner playing Sorokin.
The teaser also shows Anna Chlumsky playing Vivian, the reporter attempting to uncover the truth about Sorokin, which is based on The Cut writer Jessica Pressler.
“I might have a story,” she says in the teaser, mapping out Sorokin's whereabouts on ‘Manhattan’ magazine’s walls and spending late nights in the office.
Pressler also wrote the article that inspired the film 'Hustlers.'
Where Is Anna Sorokin Now?
Sorokin, who is now 30-years-old, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since March 2019.
She was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison in 2019, but was released in February of 2021 for good behavior.
In an interview with Insider, she described her experience at Albion Correctional Center, saying: “I feel like it's insane. To take people, to lock them up, take everything away from them, and just to expect them to reform. What is that supposed to do for you? You're just deprived of everything.”
It was reported that Sorokin had overstayed her visa by the time the trial took place, and ICE had vowed to deport her.
Sorokin has allegedly paid back her victims and covered her legal fees with a fee she received from the Netflix series based on her life.
In an interview with BBC, Sorokin talked about her plans for when she is released.
“I am writing my book, I have my NFT project, and my merch, and [I am working on] prison reform. I am trying to turn the attention I am getting into something positive.”
Last year, Garner talked about playing Sorokin in the Netflix series and meeting her in jail to research the role.
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“The only thing that I didn’t expect is that Anna is really funny,” Garner said. “She’s actually hysterical. And she’s super soft-spoken and gentle. Going into any part, you can’t have too many negative thoughts because you don’t want to start with the character judging them.”
Anna Sorokin — or Anna Delvey — spent years scamming New York's elites.
Sorokin, first moved to New York in 2013. She pretended to be a wealthy German heiress in order to gain access to the New York social scene.
She went by the pseudonym until 2017 after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office began investigating her for bank fraud.
Sorokin was actually born in the town of Domodedovo, near Moscow, in January 1991, and her family moved to Germany in 2007 when she was 16.
Her father worked as a truck driver and her mother was a convenience store owner before becoming a housewife.
After arriving in New York, Sorokin attempted to pitch her idea of starting the “Anna Delvey Foundation” to wealthy investors.
She befriended rich socialites and would ask them to pay for hotels, flights, and other lavish expenses on the pretense that she would pay them back, but never did.
After failing to pull investors for her foundation, which was supposed to compose of a private members’ club and art foundation that involved leasing the Church Missions House, Sorokin began creating fake bank statements.
Sorokin also checked into hotels without a working credit card on file and racked up tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid fees.
However, Sorokin has insisted that she is not the greedy person she is often painted to be and has managed to garner a somewhat perplexing form of support from those who question whether her actions were as fraudulent as her conviction suggests.
As the Netflix synopsis asks, "Is Anna New York’s biggest con woman, or is she simply the new portrait of the American dream?"
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.