New York is a place where people come to make their fortune. Bloomberg. Murdoch. DeGrom. For Anna Sorokin (you might know her as Anna Delvey), New York wa s a place where she came to fake her fortune. From the moment Ms. Sorokin arrived in the city in 2014 she seemed to turn Gotham into an archipelago of Pollyannas. She said her dream was to build a members-only arts club on Park Avenue South. She handed out $100 bills as tips, wore fancy clothes and lived in elegant hotels. Yesterday, Ms. Sorokin, 28, was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for grand larceny and other charges. Ms. Sorokin’s scandal was made for social media: She was young, her marks were luxurious and the deception was simplistic enough to share in 280-character tweets. Here’s what you need to know: Who is Anna Sorokin? Ms. Sorokin was born in Russia in 1991, moved to Germany in 2007 and later went to Paris. Around that time, she began calling herself Anna Delvey, the name she used in New York. She also claimed to be a German heiress.<doc-sep>Anna Sorokin, the 28-year-old who posed as fake German heiress "Anna Delvey," has been sentenced to at least four years in prison and a maximum of 12 years by a New York court today, Buzzfeed reports. Sorokin was additionally ordered to pay $199,000 in restitution and a fine of $24,000. Sorokin pretended to be a socialite in Manhattan for nearly four years, reportedly scamming banks, people, and businesses out of $275,000. She was arrested in 2017, charged with grand larceny and theft of services, and her scam became viral when Vanity Fair and New York magazine ran features on it. Sorokin was found guilty at the end of April and was convicted of attempted grand larceny, three grand larceny counts and a misdemeanor charge of theft of services, District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said (via CNN). For her sentencing, Sorokin wore a long-sleeve black dress and flats, Buzzfeed notes. Sorokin hired a professional stylist during her trial, Anastasia Walker, to consult on her courtroom looks. Walker spoke to ELLE.com earlier about her experience helping Sorokin dress for her trial. Walker would send designer clothes, from Victoria Beckham slacks to Saint Laurent blouses, to her client. "Anna and I talked on the phone about what she was interested in wearing," Walker said. "I couldn't show her photographs, but as people interested in fashion, we spoke in references about the themes she wanted to come through [in her outfits]. I selected some timeless pieces, given that everything is so public today and [trial] photographs can be saved, potentially, forever." Alyssa Bailey News and Strategy Editor Alyssa Bailey is the news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>New York may be a city of dreams, but when they are shattered – as fake heiress Anna Sorokin found out in a Manhattan courtroom late on Thursday – they can do so spectacularly. Sorokin, a would-be art collector with plans to open a members-only arts club, carried out a lengthy and elaborate fraud on New York’s glitziest social strata under the name of Anna Delvey. On Thursday, the Russian-born 28-year-old dubbed the “Soho grifter” was found guilty of swindling hotels, restaurants, a private jet operator and banks out of more than $200,000. She faces up to 15 years in prison. Sign up for the US morning briefing But some of the charges in a case that has transfixed Manhattan society didn’t hold, including an alleged attempt to fraudulently obtain a $22m (£17m) loan, and an accusation that she had swindled $60,000 from a friend who had paid for a lavish trip to Morocco. But for the most part, a jury agreed that Sorokin had fraudulently manoeuvred herself into “the best position to take money” from a social milieu that exists in a twilight of openings and events on the periphery of a tight-knit world of wealthy art collectors, dealers and auctioneers. Prosecutors said that Sorokin’s ambition was to “live the fantasy of an extravagant lifestyle beyond her means”; her lawyers countered that her lavish presentation – court proceedings were suspended early on in the three-week trial while the defendant fussed over her choice of stylist-supplied designer outfits – were nothing more than a woman who understood that superficial glamour was key to acceptance in the circles she aspired to join. “‘Fake it until you make it,’” lawyer Todd Spodek said during opening statements in her trial last month. Spodek conceded that his client’s practice was unethical but, he claimed, not illegal because she planned to pay everyone back. “Any millennial will tell you,” he said, “it is not uncommon to have delusions of grandeur.” Sorokin had merely allowed people to believe what they wanted to believe, Spodek added. “Everyone wanted to believe she was a German heiress” because, in effect, “the rich help the rich”. Not so, countered prosecutors. Forging financial statements, establishing email addresses for a fictional accountant and a fake financial adviser are not the actions of an idle fantasist. Sorokin’s problems started when one group of financiers from whom she sought the $22m loan noticed that her passport showed she was from a Russian town despite her claim to be from Germany. But she succeeded in obtaining $100,000 from City National Bank, spending $40,000 of it on clothing and hotels, the court heard. Anna Sorokin arrives for her trial at New York state supreme court earlier this month. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP “Making up fake accountants, making up fake documents – those are not white lies,” argued the lead prosecutor, Catherine McCaw, in her summation earlier this week. “As proven at trial, Anna Sorokin committed real white-collar felonies over the course of her lengthy masquerade,” said the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, after the verdict, thanking prosecutors in his office for their “resolve to ensure that Sorokin faces real justice for her many thefts and lies”. In truth, Sorokin was nothing like the Cologne heiress with a $60m fortune she claimed to be. She was reportedly born in Russia and in 2007 emigrated to Germany where her father runs a heating and cooling business. After interning in Paris for Purple magazine, she moved to New York in 2014 with a new ambition. She upped her look to Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent and settled into a life of boutique hotels and private jets, once booking one on credit to fly to Omaha, Nebraska, for an investor conference by the multibillionaire American investor Warren Buffett. “She walked into my life in Gucci sandals and Céline glasses,” wrote Rachel DeLoache Williams in a Vanity Fair account of the Moroccan trip. “And showed me a glamorous, frictionless world of hotel living and Le Coucou dinners and infra-red saunas,” she continued, referring to the New York restaurant of the internationallyacclaimed gastronomer Daniel Rose. At the centre of the alleged scam was a glossy 80-page prospectus aimed at potential investors in the “Anna Delvey Foundation”, which came with a smattering of names that would give art world insiders, some of whom became her marks, confidence to become founder-members of a private club called ADF, for the Anna Delvey Foundation. Although the jury dismissed the DeLoache-Williams claim that she was ripped off for $60,000, the Vanity Fair picture editor may find some recompense down the road: Netflix has commissioned Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the popular television show Grey’s Anatomy, to produce a series about her exploits, possibly starring Jennifer Lawrence. Sorokin’s conviction may also prove to be the price of education for Manhattan’s moneyed elite, many of whom entertained – and some came close to buying into – her tales of sophistication. But as DeLoache Williams found, Sorokin’s promises often came up short. She would offer to pay for drinks and then claim to have mislaid her credit card, proffering promises to repay. The court heard she never did. Marc Kremers, founder of a London-based design firm, Future Corp which Sorokin engaged to design the prospectus, told artnet he spent nine months trying to get paid before concluding Sorokin was a fraud. “I was just waiting for the illusion to shatter, which it did in spectacular fashion. She truly is the malignant child of the Instagram age.”<doc-sep>Judge Diane Kiesel could barely conceal her irritation. Anna Sorokin, the defendant at the centre of a highly publicized art world extortion trial, was refusing to attend proceedings on account of dissatisfaction with her courtroom outfit. “This is a trial,” Kiesel told Sorokin’s lawyer, Todd Spodek. “She’s a defendant. I’m sorry, her clothing is not up to her standards. Are you asking me to stop this trial because of her wardrobe?” Not exactly, said Spodek. It was true, he said, that the 28-year-old dubbed the “socialite scammer” by the New York tabloids “didn’t want appear in Rikers clothes and her clothes were dirty and not pressed”. But, he said, it was “an aggregate of things, not just her clothes. She’s feeling nauseous. She’s been up since 4am. She’s not being treated well by other inmates and some officers …” Kiesel directed court officers to give Sorokin coffee or water and ordered a break. An hour later, the defendant was brought in. She was wearing a white shirt and black trousers. It wasn’t the Miu Miu she wore on Tuesday, or Thursday’s Saint Laurent. (GQ reported she had hired a stylist.) For much of the last week, Sorokin’s wardrobe has been informing hearings that have given New York light entertainment between the El Chapo case and the start in June of the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault trial. Anna Sorokin in New York state supreme court on 27 March. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP The obsession with presentation is oddly appropriate. The story of Anna Sorokin, or Anna Delvey, as she presented herself to the highest echelons of the art world, is about a young woman accused of using a sheen of sophistication to perpetrate a two-year, $275,000 scam of friends, banks, private jet companies, designers and upscale hotels. The name Anna Delvey first became public a year ago, in a New York magazine story titled How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People. Vanity Fair followed up with an account of how the woman invited a friend on a lavish Marrakech holiday, then left her to foot the bill. She walked into my life in Gucci sandals and Céline glasses Rachel DeLoache “She walked into my life in Gucci sandals and Céline glasses,” wrote Rachel DeLoache Williams, “and showed me a glamorous, frictionless world of hotel living and Le Coucou dinners and infra-red saunas and Moroccan vacations. And then she made my $62,000 disappear.” ‘Giants of the modern contemporary scene’ Sorokin is accused of racking up $160,000 in fees at a financial advisory firm in connection with an attempt to rent a Park Avenue property in which she planned to open an arts club. Presenting herself as a wealthy art collector from Cologne, she offered agents a suspicious-looking screenshot showing a $20m bank balance. At the centre of the alleged scam was a glossy 80-page prospectus aimed at potential investors in the “Anna Delvey Foundation”, which came with names that would make art world insiders, some of whom allegedly became her targets, feel at home. “Her interests and collecting has [sic] spanned giants of the modern and contemporary scene,” the brochure read, listing: “Urs Fischer, Cindy Sherman, Agnes Martin, Ed Ruscha, Anish Kapour [sic], and Helmut Newton, to name a few.” Anna Sorokin celebrates New York fashion week in 2013. Photograph: Matteo Prandoni/BFA/REX/Shutterstock It also included names from commercial side of the art world, including designer Daniel Arsham, former Warhol Museum director Eric Shiner, and Sotheby’s vice-president of global digital and marketing strategy Noah Wunsch, who recently sold a collection of Supreme skateboards designed by well-known artists for $1.2m. According to the New York Post, “Anna Delvey” also tried to scam “the ultimate conman” Billy McFarland, who is now jailed in connection with the notorious Fyre festival. Not surprisingly, her story has gained the attention of film-makers. Shonda Rhimes, the force behind Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, has announced she is creating a TV series about Sorokin. Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie have reportedly expressed interest in the lead in a film based on the Vanity Fair story. Sorokin, who has pleaded not guilty, is reportedly interested in seeing her life on the screen. But who is she? On the surface, that’s easy to answer. According to prosecutors, she is from Russia. Her father, it has been reported, is a truck driver. More difficult to answer is how her alleged fraud got as far as it did. For the past decade or more, the art world has been awash in foreign money, much of it from former Soviet states. In such light, the fewer questions galleries and auction houses ask about the origins of such new money or its bearers, the better. But some New York women who met “Anna Delvey” found themselves asking one key question. She may have been able to carry off the fashion, but her hair was not coiffed to their high standards. Why not? ‘There’s a little bit of Anna in everyone’ In opening remarks last week, Spodek attempted to present his client as anyone else who comes to New York to make it. He cited a Sinatra anthem, New York, New York, saying the idea of “making a brand new start of it” here “resonates with people all over the world”. “There’s a little bit of Anna in everyone,” he said. “Everyone lies a little.” He framed her crimes as “chutzpah” and “moxie”, arguing that the accepted rule of New York’s elite social scene was “fake it until you make it”. He also blamed the influence of social media-obsessed culture. Any millennial will tell you, it is not uncommon to have delusions of grandeur Todd Spodek “Any millennial will tell you,” he said, “it is not uncommon to have delusions of grandeur.” Asked to explain his client’s preoccupation with presentation, he told the Guardian: “It’s particular to highbrow society, whether that’s art or fashion or film or music. The barriers for entry are high or you have to have connections.” The brochure Sorokin presented, he said, “was an accomplished, vetted business plan”. It was enough to get Sorokin in the door.<doc-sep>
The "Summer of Scam" is finally over for Anna Sorokin, the 28-year-old who faked being a Manhattan socialite for nearly a year and tricked numerous people, businesses, and banks out of $275,000 in the process. Sorokin, better known by her alias, "Anna Delvey," was sentenced Thursday in a New York court to serve at least four years in prison with a maximum sentence of 12 years. Wearing a long-sleeved black dress and flats, she was also ordered by Judge Diane Kiesel to pay almost $199,000 in restitution, as well as a fine of $24,000. Sorokin's lawyers had described her as a hustler trying to make it in New York City, akin to the lyrics of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York." But Kiesel said in her sentencing remarks that she was reminded of a different song. "I heard Bruce Springsteen's 'Blinded by the Light,'" the judge said. "She was blinded by the glitter and glamour of New York City." Prior to the reading of the sentence, Assistant District Attorney Catherine McCaw spoke in support of a 4- to 12-year sentence, saying it "required a repeated commitment again and again" for Sorokin to claim she "had a phony fortune she did not in fact possess." McCaw said Sorokin has shown "almost no remorse" during the trial and took "more seriously her clothing than anything else." "The defendant didn't want to live an ordinary life, and she was willing to steal in order to get that," McCaw said. Sorokin's lawyer Todd Spodek had argued that she should be sentenced to time served because she has been incarcerated since fall 2017. "This is not a career criminal," he said. "This is a young adult who made numerous mistakes. She was 25 years old and got way in over her head."