THE unbelievable story of Anna Delvey takes to the silver screen in Friday’s release of the long-awaited series Inventing Anna.
The Netflix series tells of Anna Delvery’s fall from grace from a seemingly elite Manhattan socialite and fashionista to an exposed scammer with a terrible reputation after being arrested in 2018.
The 31-year-old German-born fake heiress, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, was found guilty of eight charges in 2019 including grand larceny in the second degree, attempted grand larceny, and theft of services.
Sorokin stole a total of $225k from Manhattan socialites, banks, and hotels.
Sorokin, who’s played by Julia Garner in the new series, was sentenced to four to 12 years in state prison, fined $24,000, and ordered to pay restitution of about $199,000.
But the con woman was released on parole in February of last year when she temporarily went to live at a luxury hotel in New York and hired a film crew to document her post-prison life.
In her freedom, Sorokin traipsed around New York and posted on her Instagram account, where she’s reposted news articles about herself as well as posts that seem to flaunt her “wealth” to her over 152,000 followers, including videos of her eating caviar and shopping at high-end retailer Net-a-Porter.
A month after her release, Sorokin even shared a post where she compares herself to Duchess Meghan Markle, saying: ” I too know what it feels like to lose my voice. Meghan X DelveyMail.com, you see it.”
Six weeks after her release from prison, she was arrested by ICE due to an expired visa.
Sorokin is expected to be deported back to Germany, where her estranged parents live.
She thinks it’s unfair that she is in ICE detention, according to an essay she published with Insider.
“My visa overstay was unintentional and largely out of my control,” Sorokin wrote.
“I did not break a single one of New York state’s or ICE’s parole rules. Despite all that, I’ve yet to be given a clear and fair path to compliance.”
Netflix paid Sorokin $320,000 to adapt her story into Inventing Anna, according to Insider.
She used nearly $200,000 to pay restitution to the banks she owed money to and $24,000 in state fines.
Sorokin also mentioned in her essay that she is appealing her criminal conviction in order to clear her name.
INVENTING ANNA
The Netflix series is based on Jessica Pressler’s New York magazine article that originally brought Sorokin’s exploits to fame.
The mini-series will feature nine one-hour-long episodes.
Julia Garner, in preparation for playing Sorokin, said that she and producer Shonda Rhimes visited Sorokin in prison.
In her essay, Sorokin said that she doesn’t plan on watching the limited series anytime soon.
“Even if I were to pull some strings and make it happen, nothing about seeing a fictionalized version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.”
Inventing Anna is available to watch on Netflix now.
