Anna Sorokin, the fake German heiress accused of swindling friends and businesses out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to bankroll her lavish Manhattan lifestyle, was found guilty on Thursday.
According to the New York Post, Sorokin was found guilty on eight counts— including first-degree attempted grand larceny. She reportedly faces 15 years behind bars and will be sentenced on May 9.
Known in New York’s social scene as Anna Delvey, Sorokin reinvented herself when she arrived in the United States from Germany in 2016, posing as a wealthy socialite when she was in fact the daughter of a Russian truck driver, prosecutors said.
After traveling the world and living in expensive boutique hotels, the 28-year-old was arrested in October 2017 and charged with grand larceny and theft of services for allegedly stealing about $275,000 in a 10-month spree.
During her three-week trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, Sorokin declined to take the stand on her behalf, and her attorney, Todd Spodek, didn’t put on a defense case.
The “SoHo grifter’s” case garnered national attention following New York Magazine and Vanity Fair articles last year that detailed the lengths Sorokin went through to convince close friends, banks, and financial institutions she was a foreign heiress with unlimited funds.
Manhattan prosecutors alleged Sorokin told “lie after lie” to maintain the lavish lifestyle she couldn’t afford, often providing forged financial records and bank statements to persuade others she had millions of euros overseas.
Sorokin, who told friends she’d moved to New York to start a private art club, lived out of hotels with an overdrawn account, dined at trendy restaurants without paying the tab, and even hired a personal trainer for $300 a session, prosecutors said.
“She knew if she told people she had this money, they would trust her, that eventually she would be good for the deal,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Catherine McCaw said in her closing arguments. “In fact, she had no ability to pay and no intention to pay.”
To prove Sorokin’s disregard for money, prosecutors detailed in court how she once spent $40,000 in just eight days. While staying at the W Hotel in Manhattan, she allegedly “barricaded herself” in her room and refused to let anyone inside, eventually spending $679 in miscellaneous expenses.
“That’s an awful lot of M&Ms,” McCaw said. “She knew she couldn’t pay for it.”
