Anna Sorokin, Scammer Who Pretended To Be An Heiress, Avoids Extradition To Germany

Anna Sorokin, the con artist who scammed hotels, banks and associates out of hundreds of thousands of dollars while pretending to be a German heiress, is still in custody in the U.S. after it was reported that she was deported to Germany.

According to her lawyer, Manny Arora, Sorokin was nearly placed on a flight to Frankfurt at the start of the week, but he filed an emergency request to delay the deportation on Monday. It was even confirmed that she left the ICE detention center in Goshen, New York, but the next day those reports were contested as immigration officials claimed she never left.

Sorokin, who conned people with the name “Anna Delvey,” had been held by ICE for the past year because she was found guilty of overstaying her visa. This happened only a month after she was released for good behavior from her prison sentence relating to her financial crimes.

From 2013 to 2017, Sorokin was able to secure bank loans, free hotel rooms, and other gifts by falsely claiming that she was sitting on a $60 million fortune from her wealthy family. She rejected a plea deal at the start of her trial and once said in an interview before her sentencing, “I’d be lying to you and everyone else and to myself if I said it was sorry for everything.”

Along with being sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for her crimes, Sorokin was forced to pay restitution in a total of about $199,000 to several institutions she scammed. Most of the fees were handled, however, by the $320,000 Netflix deal Sorokin signed to allow them to produce a show about her life.

The miniseries, titled Inventing Anna, starred Julia Garner and was released in February of this year to mixed reviews.