Sorokin was convicted on eight counts, including grand larceny after posing as a wealthy German heiress to con New York socialites. Her story is the basis of Netflix’s Inventing Anna
Anna Sorokin, the con artist whose story inspired Netflix’s Inventing Ana, believes she deserves a “second chance.”
The 31-year-old fraudster — who posed as a wealthy German heiress named Anna Delvey while living in New York City to con socialites, banks, and hotels — spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday to express regret for her actions between 2013 to 2017.
“I feel like I deserve a second chance, it was my mistake that I made and I served my time and I feel like I should deserve a second opportunity,” Sorokin, also known as Anna Delvey, told Tapper while on house arrest in New York.
For four years, the Russian-born Sorokin used her fake persona to spend invalid credit cards and issue fake bank statements, bounce from hotel to hotel, and stoke an estimated $275,000. She was arrested in October 2017 following a sting operation and was found guilty of eight charges, including attempted grand larceny in the first degree, grand larceny in the second degree, grand larceny in the third degree, and theft of services, in April 2019.
Sorokin was then released early from prison in February 2021, before being taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after overstaying her visa. She chose to spend 18 months in immigration detention instead of returning to Europe. That decision, she told Tapper, was made to avoid the “labels” she feels she’s since been given by the general public.
“I feel like if I were to leave and say, ‘Oh, whatever, I’m just going to move on and move to Europe,’ I would be accepting the labels that they are trying to slap on me,” Sorokin said. “I feel like I deserve a second chance.”
During her CNN discussion, Sorokin explained that she feels “so sorry for a lot of the choices I’ve made,” and ultimately “learned so much” and “grew as a person” after her trial. Since she’s been released, she’s been barred from joining social media and must use electronic monitoring. She said she’s also determined to “absolutely not” commit her crimes again.
“I definitely did [take advantage of people],” she said. “And I was younger and I learned from my mistakes.”
“They kind of created this idea of me and I’m just being left to deal with it,” Sorokin said of the media and the prosecution during her trial. “I’m trying to not glamorize my crimes and not lead anybody to believe that’s the way to get famous. Because I suffered a lot as a result… even though I don’t always show it. I’m not going to go on TV and cry.”
Inventing Anna, which stars Julia Garner as Sorokin, premiered on Netflix on Feb. 11. The con artist was reportedly paid $320,000 for the rights to adapt her life story, money that she is said to have used to pay restitution, per Insider.
In an open letter for the outlet, Sorokin spoke up about her thoughts on the series, writing that “nothing about seeing a fictionalized version of myself in this criminal-insane-asylum setting sounds appealing to me.”
“And while I’m curious to see how they interpreted all the research and materials provided,” she wrote, “I can’t help but feel like an afterthought, the somber irony of being confined to a cell at yet another horrid correctional facility lost between the lines, the history repeating itself.”
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