[imagesource: Ben Rayner for The New York Times]

The infamous scammer-socialite Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin is finally out of jail.

But she has an ankle bracelet on and is legally bound to her one-bedroom apartment in the East Village, New York.

She is hell-bent on sticking around in the Big Apple, even though it is packed with the people she defrauded out of millions and millions of dollars.

The fake heiress managed to fool banks and New York City big names, including a few ‘friends’, to the tune of around $67 million to fund her jet-setting lifestyle.

Her con artist ways were the subject of the hit Netflix series Inventing Anna, showing how she pretended to be a super-wealthy German heiress persuading members of Manhattan’s elite to invest in a members-only arts club.

Her major shopping and crime spree came to an end in 2019 when she was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison. Sky News reported that she was released from state prison in February 2021 but was sent back to jail again after Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her into custody.

Sorokin was born in what was then the Soviet Union, has German citizenship, and has been battling with the possibility of being deported back to Germany ever since.

But the woman is as tenacious as ever, having been granted a $10 000 bond and released from jail on Friday.

The New York Times sat down with Sorokin for her first interview since being released. They discuss her time in immigration detention, her evolution since her Delvey days (her tone has apparently shifted from “one of defiance to something nearing an apology”) and what she plans to do now that she’s no longer behind bars.

Image: Ben Rayner for The New York Times

She said she is quite happy to still be in New York, despite being on house arrest, burdened by an ankle monitor and banned from social media:

“I’m really happy. Nothing was guaranteed. They denied bail before. It was an exercise in perseverance. So many immigration lawyers told me I’d get deported to Mars before I’d get out in New York. And I just had to find the person who’d align with my vision, not accept “no” for an answer and make it happen,” she said in the interview when asked how she feels.

She could have fought her deportation status from Germany, but in true Sorokin fashion, she said she “did not want it to go down the way ICE wanted it to”:

“Letting them deport me would have been like a sign of capitulation — confirmation of this perception of me as this shallow person who only cares about obscene wealth, and that’s just not the reality”, she continued.

“I could have left, but I chose not to because I’m trying to fix what I’ve done wrong. I have so much history in New York and I felt like if I were in Europe, I’d be running from something. But if jail does not prove people wrong, then what will?”

Later on, she admitted to being “regretful” for the way things played out, adding that she’s tried to see her experience as a chance for growth, “Who I am today is because of the decisions I made in the past”, she said.

Asked if the money to lease the apartment and the $10 000 bond were hers, she replied simply: “Yes.”

She’s set herself up nicely from jail, I guess, coordinating with people from 8:30AM through to 10PM and surrounded by a “great team” who helped her save face.

Sorokin is still dealing with the immigration process and will be doing so for years to come thanks to a COVID-19-related backlog in the system, but she says she’s “really, really happy about that”.

Mostly because she gets to stay in New York for the time being.

Don’t worry, she’s assured that the city “will remain safe — even if one day I’m able to leave this apartment”.

[sources:skynews&newyorktimes]