Anna Delvey has launched a legal bid to quash her 24/7 confinement by claiming her ‘draconian’ house arrest serves ‘absolutely no purpose’ and ‘breaches her constitutional rights’, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Delvey, 33, real name Anna Sorokin, has been holed up in her $4,250-a-month apartment in New York’s East Village since October 2022, when she was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention for overstaying her visa.
The East European fraudster, who posed as a German heiress, served nearly four years in prison after her 2019 conviction drew widespread attention. She was taken back into custody by ICE six weeks after her release in 2021.
Her lawyers filed a habeus corpus petition – a civil suit used to assess whether an imprisonment is lawful – claiming that Delvey suffered from ‘severe emotional distress and stress’ because of her bond conditions.
Documents obtained by DailyMail.com say she should be allowed to attend doctors’ appointments and go grocery shopping without prior approval of the court amid her deportation battle.
Anna Delvey has been under house arrest in her $4,250-a-month East Village apartment since October 2022
The Eastern European fraudster, who posed as a German heiress, served nearly four years in prison after she was convicted in 2019 of swindling more than $200,000 from banks and people
Delvey’s team argue she should be allowed to hold business meetings, exercise and seek employment despite her house arrest.
They add that her ban from social media, along with the other prohibitions, don’t lower her flight risk or threat to the community and ‘violate her constitutional rights’ to free speech. She is currently subject to electronic monitoring.
Her lawyers also bemoan her living situation, claiming that her Manhattan apartment is ‘small’, adding that she can only leave to speak with ICE or her probation officer, and for life-or-death medical emergencies and court hearings.
Despite her ban, the fraudster launched a podcast called The Anna Delvey Show, in which she discusses ‘preconceived notions of rule breakers’ and goes ‘beyond tired notions of what’s right and wrong’.
Her attorney John Sandweg filed the documents in federal court in the Southern District of New York on Friday, against Kenneth Genalo, the Field Office Director for ICE’s NYC department, Patrick Lechleitner the Deputy Director of ICE, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review David Neal.
Sandweg claims that ICE offered ‘no evidence’ that Delvey posed a flight risk or danger to the community, relying on ‘largely stale’ clippings relating to her 2019 convictions.
‘Ms. Sorokin disputes that such evidence is material, relevant to, or probative of her alleged dangerousness or flight risk’, the documents state.
‘This habeas petition does not challenge any underlying orders relating to removal. Rather, it seeks to vindicate Ms. Sorokin’s constitutional rights to be free from indefinite, unreasonably prolonged, and arbitrary detention, to be free from punitive conditions of civil detention, and to exercise her freedom of speech.’
They add that Delvey has a right to a review of her immigration detention, with her last bond hearing scheduled more than a year ago.
As part of the filing, Delvey is demanding that the government pay for her attorneys’ fees and costs if a judge rules in her favor.
Her team also claim that former counsel Audrey Thomas was ‘ineffective’, and failed to file an appeal against a denial for her asylum application. Attorneys for Delvey have since had a motion to reopen the proceedings approved.
Delvey dismissed Thomas – who faked a heart attack in court as she was being sanctioned – after the lawyer filed a lawsuit against the grifter claiming she owes her more than $152,000 in legal fees.
According to the complaint, Delvey paid Thomas a retainer for appealing her conviction and overstaying her visa, for which she faced possible deportation to Germany, but failed to pay the outstanding amount.
Delvey has accused her of withholding court records that the convicted fraudster needs to fight her deportation case.
Her 2019 trial drew widespread attention, partly due to her over-the-top fashion choices in court.
Delvey was ultimately convicted of attempted grand larceny, three grand larceny counts and four misdemeanor charges of theft of service.
She was released from prison on good behavior on February 11, 2021 after serving nearly four years.
The fake heiress previously said she believes she belongs in New York and will hold out under house arrest for ‘as long as it takes,’ while she appeals a deportation order to Germany where she was raised.
The fake heiress previously said she believes she belongs in New York and will hold out under house arrest for ‘as long as it takes’
Delvey has been seen out in public wearing an ankle monitor since her release from prison. She is pictured with her lawyer at Manhattan Civil Court last year
Delvey spent three years plundering New York society, dressing in expensive designer clothes, dining at fine restaurants and helping herself to what she wanted but couldn’t afford.
She left in her wake a trail of unpaid rent, hotel and credit card bills, bounced checks, fake wire transfers and empty promises to the ‘friends’ and associates who had loaned her money.
The wannabe socialite boasted of having a $60million trust fund but often claimed her credit card wasn’t working, but she could easily pay them back.
She was arrested in October 2017 after one of her victims, Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams, went to the police claiming she had been swindled out of $62,000, and assisted with a subsequent sting operation.
Delvey’s lavish lifestyle as a con artist was captured in a 2022 miniseries ‘Inventing Anna’, telling the story of a woman leading New York’s elite to believe she is a German heiress to a large fortune in order to bank a personal hoard of cash and goods as she looks to open an art-themed club.
Russian-born Delvey spent two years in prison after being charged with grand larceny and theft of services.