Is scammer Anna Sorokin returning to her old ways in NYC?
Anna Sorokin, the woman once labeled the Soho grifter, has spent the years since her 2021 prison release navigating a far more complicated public life than early speculation suggested. Immigration authorities, fashion weeks, and reality television have each taken turns shaping her story. The question of whether she would slip back into old patterns has been overtaken by documented court filings, runway bookings, and an active social media account that now reaches nearly a million followers.
The case
In 2019 Anna Sorokin was convicted of grand larceny after she stole roughly two hundred thousand dollars from businesses and tried to secure a twenty-two-million-dollar loan for a would-be Manhattan art club. The scheme began in 2013 when she arrived in New York and told new acquaintances she controlled an eighty-million-dollar trust fund inherited from a diplomat and oil-executive father. She checked into luxury hotels, booked high-end spas, and ordered expensive meals, yet routinely avoided paying her share. One well-publicized incident involved former Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel Williams, who covered a sixty-two-thousand-dollar trip to Morocco after Sorokin claimed her credit card had failed. Williams never saw the money again.
Who is Anna Sorokin?
Sorokin was born Anna Vadimovna Sorokina in Domodedovo, Russia, in 1991. Her father worked as a truck driver and her mother ran a convenience store. The family moved to Germany when she was sixteen. She later studied at Central Saint Martins in London and interned at a Paris fashion magazine before landing in New York and rebranding herself as Anna Delvey, a German heiress.
Immigration and Deportation Proceedings
Sorokin left state prison in February 2021 and was immediately taken into ICE custody for overstaying a 2017 tourist visa. She remained detained until October 2022, when a ten-thousand-dollar bond placed her under house arrest with an ankle monitor and a seventy-mile travel radius. As of May 2026, Department of Homeland Security officials have publicly stated their intent to deport her to Germany, describing her as a criminal illegal alien. She continues to appeal the removal order while living in New York under those restrictions.
Fashion and Creative Ventures
Post-release life has centered on runway work and fashion projects rather than the speculation that followed her 2021 sightings. Sorokin walked for SHAO New York during New York Fashion Week in both 2024 and 2025, appeared in additional presentations, and has collaborated with publicist Kelly Cutrone on several shows. She has also developed a line called Nothing and has been photographed preparing collections in her own apartment after a reported forty-pound weight loss. A related defamation suit filed by Rachel Williams over the Netflix series Inventing Anna was settled in early 2026.
Reality TV and Media Appearances
Sorokin expanded her public profile through television when she competed on Dancing with the Stars Season 33 in 2024 and was eliminated in week two. She has also hosted The Anna Delvey Show podcast and given multiple interviews about her post-prison plans, including potential memoir and documentary projects. These appearances mark a shift from the early social media selfies that followed her release to structured media work with scheduled air dates and production teams.
Social Media and Public Persona Evolution
Access to Instagram was restored in August 2024. Under the handle theannadelvey, Sorokin now maintains roughly one million followers. Recent posts focus on fashion prep, runway fittings, and daily routines within the limits of house arrest. The tone is lighter than the prison-exhaustion captions that appeared in 2021, and the account has become a primary channel for announcing collaborations and appearances.
The arc that began with hotel charges and unpaid tabs now includes court-mandated monitoring, runway bookings, and a sizable online audience. Whether any of these developments signals lasting change remains an open question that only future filings and bookings can answer.
