Drifting through an immaculately tended garden in a floaty dress to an atmospheric soundtrack, the woman tosses her long, tousled hair and gazes winsomely into the camera lens, showing off chiselled cheekbones, perfectly unlined skin and plump lips.
So it was that, posing like a fashion model, convicted fraudster Anna Sorokin heralded her return to Instagram last week after a two-year social media ban finally came to an end on August 7.
Never one to pass up an opportunity for self-promotion, Sorokin, better known as Anna Delvey, also swiftly uploaded footage of herself plugging a new reality TV show in which contestants need to deploy ‘deception, lying and not letting people see the real you’.
Traits, she acknowledges on film with a smirk, she knows something about.
Convicted fraudster Anna Sorokin, better known as Anna Delvey, heralded her return to Instagram last week after a two-year social media ban finally came to an end on August 7
Already she has 1.1 million followers, and it’s only one of a raft of exciting new developments in Sorokin’s life, which include the relaxing of the rules around her house arrest.
She is now able to roam around Manhattan, the scene of her past crimes, and has been given an American social security number which enables her to work and will allow her to build her fledgling PR company, the suitably titled OutLaw Agency.
Ambitious as ever, she is due to produce shows for up-and-coming designers at next month’s New York Fashion Week, even though she has little experience in the fashion industry, and is pitching a talk show to production companies.
She is still working on her memoir, has a striking new look that she insists has nothing to do with cosmetic surgery and hints that there is a new man in her life.
But for the inveterate self-publicist – whose story inspired the hit Netflix series Inventing Anna – it’s her return to what she calls her ‘socials’ which is perhaps most important.
‘I’m grateful to be able to control my own narrative again,’ the 33-year-old told me. ‘When my lawyers called me with the decision, it was overwhelming, a big relief – the same kind of feeling I had when I got out of jail.
‘I made mistakes but I’ve grown up and I’m in a different mindset now. I want to get on with the rest of my life. I hope people will see that I’ve changed and that I’m not the same person, and they’ll give me the opportunity to move on.’
While a decision about her long-term future in the US is still pending and she still has to wear an ankle tag, these are the clearest signs yet that Sorokin’s most remarkable reinvention is on the cards – from convicted con artist to legitimate US businesswoman.
Certainly she seems happy to be enjoying the limelight again, even if the days of fraudulently claiming to be a wealthy heiress are behind her. The so-called trust fund babe had boasted of having a $60 million fortune overseas but was, in fact, the daughter of a Russian truck driver who had moved his family to Germany.
Posing as a glamorous and highly plausible socialite and art lover, she infamously spent ten months duping banks, law firms, hotels, a private jet company and some gullible acquaintances after arriving in the US in 2017.
In 2019, she was convicted of grand larceny and theft of services totalling more than £211,000.
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Sorokin was released from prison in 2021 and for 13 months was restricted to an apartment in New York’s East Village, only allowed out once a week to check in with immigration officials. Then earlier this year she was permitted to decamp to the countryside, where she has been staying at the home of her business partner and publicist Kelly Cutrone.
On hearing the news that her house arrest conditions were being relaxed, Sorokin – who still prefers to use her ‘fake heiress’ surname Delvey – did something she has been unable to do for nearly two years: she went out for lunch and a spot of shopping with a friend at the upscale Hudson Yards complex in Midtown Manhattan, home to designer boutiques and chic restaurants.
Being able to eat out and enjoy a spot of retail therapy for the first time in years was ‘surreal’, she said. After spicy tuna, salad and iced tea, Sorokin and her friend strolled around The Conservatory, an upmarket store whose ethos is ‘considered luxury’.
While it stocks clothes from designers such as Phillip Lim, Gabriela Hearst and Alaia, Sorokin, who used to dress in Celine and Balenciaga before her downfall, restricted her purchases to a single modest purchase.
Admittedly, it was a $20 (£15) bar of artisanal soap from Provence. But it was hardly a splurge, so maybe the previously profligate Sorokin has indeed learned some hard lessons.
‘I’m planning to move back to Manhattan after the craziness of Fashion Week is over,’ she tells me with relish from her current bolthole in upstate New York.
‘I’m looking at a couple of places downtown. I like the city. It feels like home. I know the best dry-cleaner, where to get a pedicure or get something tailored.
‘It’s a bit sleepy up here – everything closes at 9pm. I like to be in the centre of everything.’
Arguably, it was Sorokin’s desire to be at the centre of everything that got her into trouble in the first place.
When she arrived in the US in 2017, the former fashion intern’s aim had been to attract funding for an elite private members’ club and art destination under the umbrella of the grandiosely titled Anna Delvey Foundation. During a month-long trial, jurors heard how the ruse funded her lavish lifestyle. Sorokin had taken up residence in splashy boutique hotels, patronised expensive restaurants and went on luxury holidays.
She threw around crisp $100 bills like confetti to waiters, concierges and drivers.
Sorokin was pictured walking in New York City with an ankle bracelet decorated with a sparkly letter A
Sorokin during sentencing in 2019. She was released from prison in 2021
But in her wake was a trail of unpaid bills, as well as empty promises to repay ‘friends’ who had loaned her money. The ‘fake heiress’ was arrested in October 2017 after one of her ‘victims’ went to the police and assisted with a subsequent sting operation.
When Sorokin was released from prison in 2021, she immediately got into trouble with the authorities who did not take kindly to her boasting on Instagram: ‘I own this lawless f***ing city’ – leading to her being banned from social media. She insists she will be more conservative with her ‘socials’ this time around.
‘I’ve been going through my posts and deleting some stuff. That one was pretty cringe,’ she admits in her distinctive high-pitched voice, with its US, Russian and German inflections. ‘It’s one thing to post something for a hundred of your friends and another when you are posting for a million people. I’d never do that now.’
She adds: ‘I’m going to use it [social media] much less. Mainly for work, because it’s a way for me to launch projects. I’ve lost the urge to post everything about my life because so much of it was used against me during my immigration proceedings.’
She says she is excited about producing fashion shows next month for some local NY designers, a task she obviously sees as a step up on the ladder of the notoriously fickle and impenetrable fashion industry. She produced a similar show last year on the rooftop of her apartment building as a stunt when she was still under house arrest.
‘I’m doing casting, scouting for locations, talking to all the designers about what’s going to be in the collections and just making sure everything will run smoothly,’ she says of this latest effort. ‘I love fashion. It’s instant communication. It’s a great way to express yourself.’
She is also enthusiastic about a tentatively titled project called MyFakeTalkShow. Previous projects including a podcast and a reality TV show in which she hoped to persuade the likes of Madonna and Elon Musk to dine with her are not mentioned.
So who will the guests be on the putative show and what will they talk about? ‘We’re working on that,’ she replies.
Sorokin is more enthusiastic about a segment in which she would review kitchen gadgets, maybe to fund an unlikely enthusiasm for buying utensils herself. There’s a ping on my phone as Sorokin sends me a snapshot of her Amazon account which confirms she has ordered an impressive 510 items this year alone. She is such a prolific customer of the online shopping portal that her friends now call her ‘Anna-zon’, she says.
‘I wasn’t able to leave the house so I had to order everything from Amazon and I was constantly getting packages. I love quirky devices. Already I’ve found this great garlic press and a cherry pitter and an electronic candle lighter.’
A beauty segment in which she will review make-up and skin care products is also in the offing.
Talking of make-up and skin care, her followers on Instagram have speculated that Anna has had work done – the removal of buccal fat (between the cheekbones and jaw bones) and Botox to be exact. In her new videos, she certainly looks different.
Her lips are fuller and her cheekbones look more sculpted.
But when I ask about tweakments she replies airily: ‘I lost weight because I’ve been in the country and walking more and getting fresh air. People are comparing me to old pictures from court when I had no make-up on or when I’d just got out of prison. I’ve aged seven years – your face changes.’
In October she has another immigration hearing and is also scheduled to give a deposition in the pending defamation lawsuit by Rachel DeLoache Williams, her former friend and Vanity Fair picture editor. Williams went to the police in 2017 claiming Anna had left her to foot a bill of £55,000 for an ill-fated trip to Morocco they went on. She then assisted in the sting operation that led to Anna’s arrest. Williams later gave evidence against her former friend in court, but Anna was found not guilty on the two counts.
Williams has claimed in her lawsuit she was falsely portrayed in Inventing Anna as being ‘unethical’, ‘snobbish’ and ‘greedy’ and the programme was an invasion of her privacy. Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, representing Williams, said the lawsuit makes a strong case that his client’s character was intentionally misrepresented to tell a better story.
Surprisingly, Sorokin says she still hasn’t watched the series that cemented her infamy, except for the odd clip.
Sorokin may be a darling in some sections of New York society, but it’s striking how others want nothing to do with her.
‘A thoroughly awful, selfish, dishonest, narcissistic woman who conned a few rich people and got convicted. She lives for publicity,’ was one of the kinder comments when I asked people’s opinion.
Such insults initially seem like water off a duck’s back when I mention that not everyone has been won over, but then she becomes irritated. ‘Some people are still not satisfied that I was ever let out of jail,’ she huffs. ‘I was sentenced. I did my time. It’s disrespectful to the government and to the law because I didn’t make the rules. Do they want me to spend 25 [years] to life for this? Would that be better?
Sorokin, who is awaiting a decision about her long-term future in the US, arrives for an appearance at Immigration Court in New York
‘Whatever anybody may say, I’ve never had bad intentions. I never set out to defraud anybody – it just got out of control.
‘I never woke up and decided, “Let me f*** these people over – that would be fun”. I was young, and when you’re young you don’t have anything to lose.’
When Sorokin was in her 20s, she had a tech boyfriend called Hunter Lee Soik, who was also portrayed in Inventing Anna, and I ask if there’s anyone special in her life right now. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. No comment for now,’ she hints tantalisingly.
The terms of her house arrest mean she is now allowed to move within 75 miles of her residence and other requests can be considered. The Hamptons, she tells me, is somewhere she wants to visit.
‘If I wanted to go to the Hamptons, I can put in a request. I’d provide them [the immigration authorities] with the dates and where I would be staying.’
The Hamptons, playground of the rich and famous? It sounds the perfect place for the latest instalment of reinventing Anna.