Fake heiress Anna Sorokin gets 4 to 12 years in prison for high-society scam
She won’t be wearing designer labels for a while.
Fake heiress Anna Sorokin, who scammed her way into New York society, was sentenced Thursday to four to 12 years in prison, where the fashion-obsessed diva will strut around in green jail garb.
“I am stunned by the depths of the defendant’s deception, her labyrinth of lies that kept her con afloat,” said Justice Diane Kiesel before handing down the stiff term to Sorokin, who was wearing a funereal long-sleeve black dress with a bowed sash.
Kiesel remarked that while Sorokin awaited trial, “she worried about who would play her in the Netflix or the HBO programs that we’re told are in the works” instead of focusing on her Manhattan Supreme Court case.
She was convicted last month of ripping off about $200,000 from banks and businesses and trying to steal millions more — but the serious charges appeared to concern her less than her clothes.
Her couture caterwauling frequently delayed proceedings and irked the judge, who repeatedly admonished her for throwing temper tantrums when she couldn’t get her stylist-curated outfits to Rikers in time for trial.
But she’ll no longer have to concern herself with these pesky frustrations in state prison, where she’s restricted to a narrow palette, including army green slacks, skirts and shirts and white T-shirts.
For a little stylistic flare, she could opt for a green knit cap and white knee-high socks.
Juror No. 11 attended the sentencing and said that one morning, the annoyed panelists had to wait 2½ hours for the trial to begin during one of Sorokin’s sartorial meltdowns.
“I could hear her through the walls, ‘This is not what I wanted!’” the juror recalled, mimicking Sorokin’s hysterical sobs.
“No one liked her,” the juror added.
The panel found her guilty of eight of the 10 counts against her, including the top charge of attempted grand larceny for trying to obtain a $22 million bank loan.
But, in a partial coup for the defense, she got off on the second top count of attempting to get the same loan from a different bank.
The panel also found Sorokin not guilty of inviting ex-pal Rachel Williams on an all-expenses-paid trip to Morocco, then duping her into paying the $70,000 tab.
The ordeal jump-started Williams’ career, and she sold the story of her friendship with Sorokin to book publisher Simon & Schuster and HBO in deals worth more $600,000.
The wannabe socialite pretended to be a woman named Anna Delvey with a 60 million euro fortune and told the banks where she tried to score loans that the money was to start an elite Manhattan art club.
Prosecutors said she used the proceeds of her deceit and fraud to live a life of luxury “fit for a Kardashian.”
Sorokin has continued her wiles from her cell at Rikers, where she managed to persuade celebrity stylist Anastasia Walker to dress her for trial in pieces from Yves Saint Laurent, Miu Miu and Victoria Beckham.
But coordinating the outfits with jail officials proved challenging, often leaving Sorokin in a state of haute hysteria with nothing but designer knockoffs from Zara.
The German national even managed to score a TV deal from behind bars. A Netflix drama series based on the gilded grifter’s life is being produced by Shonda Rhimes.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore