‘Inventing Anna’: Fake heiress Anna Sorokin released from jail to house arrest

NEW YORK — Anna Sorokin, the woman who tricked New York’s elite into believing she was a German heiress and whose story inspired the Netflix series “Inventing Anna,” was released from an immigration detention center on Friday.

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Sorokin, 31, was released Friday from the facility in Goshen, New York, and was sent to Manhattan, The New York Times reported.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed her release to The Associated Press. Sorokin is fighting deportation to Germany.

In May 2019, she was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for financial crimes that included grand larceny and the theft of a private jet, the Times reported. She was convicted of bilking $275,000 from banks, hotels and wealthy New Yorkers into financing her deluxe lifestyle, the AP reported.

Federal immigration judge Charles R. Conroy ruled this week that Sorokin could be released under certain conditions. She is required to wear an ankle bracelet and will be barred from using social media, including the accounts she already has, the Times reported.

“Anna now has her opportunity to demonstrate her commitment to growing and giving back and being a positive impact on those she meets,” Sorokin’s spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, said in a statement. “She has hurdles before her, and she will navigate them with strength and determination, using her experiences and lessons learned.”

“She will remain under the supervision of ICE, but will be able to fight her deportation free from physical custody,” John Sandweg, a former acting director of ICE who is on Sorokin’s legal team, told CNN.

Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin claimed she was the daughter of a German diplomat and lied about having a $67 million bankroll overseas, prosecutors said.

Once released from jail after nearly four years in February 2021, Sorokin was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for staying too long in the U.S., CNN reported. She was sent to an immigration detention center the following month.

Sorokin, who was born in what was then the Soviet Union, has German citizenship, according to the Times.

While in ICE custody, Sorokin filed appeals, appeared on podcasts, wrote a book and worked on documentary projects, the Times reported.

Sorokin’s case drew widespread attention after a 2018 article in New York magazine.

That story became the basis of Shonda Rhimes’ “Inventing Anna.”

Netflix paid Sorokin $320,000 as a consultant for the show “Inventing Anna,” which starred Julia Garner in the title role. Sorokin claimed that she was not so “brazen and shameless” as the show had portrayed her, NBC News reported.

Sorokin was also part of a class-action lawsuit against ICE for not giving inmates the COVID-19 vaccine. Sorokin claimed she had contracted the virus while in custody after being denied multiple requests for a booster shot, NBC News reported.

Sorokin’s current attorney, Duncan Levin, said Wednesday that his client wants to focus on appealing her conviction, according to the AP.

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