marieclaire.com.au (^) | 67
CRIME
shuffled through piles of papers and under clothing before
claiming to have left it in a car. Of course, there was a problem.
Anna said the cheque would be dropped off, so I waited.
To prove a point, I stayed until 11pm. I left angrily,
telling her I’d be back at 8am. The next morning, Anna was
not there. I was livid. It confirmed what I had feared most:
Anna was not to be trusted.
Finally – why had it taken me so long? – I began to inves-
tigate on my own and reached out to her friends, eventually
speaking with a guy who’d once lent her money. He told me a
story that was alarming and reassuring in equal measure. He
said that after weeks of pestering, he had gotten his money
back by threatening to involve the authorities, since Anna
always maintained she was afraid of being deported. “Her
dad is a Russian billionaire,” he said. “He brings oil from
Russia to Germany.” This didn’t add up – Anna had told
me her parents worked in solar energy.
A few weeks later, Anna called me crying. “I can’t
be alone right now,” she pleaded. “Can I come to you?” she
asked. I said no and hung up. But even this far down the road,
I tried to maintain an optimistic view: my friend had run into
an unimaginable spell of bad luck; any day it would be resolved.
This optimism was one of my defining traits, an Achilles’ heel.
It’s what allowed me to befriend Anna in the first place.
And then came the decisive moment: an episode that
unfolded like the climax of a staged drama. The trainer
called me and we confronted Anna at a bar, where she was
crying behind oversized sunglasses. “Have you seen what
they’re saying about me?” she whined. An article in the
New York Post had called Anna a “wannabe socialite”. She
had stiffed The Beekman for her stay. Her belongings
had been detained. She was being charged with several
offences, including an embarrassing dine-and-
dash incident.
“We are here because we want to help
you,” the trainer began. “But to do that, we need
to hear some truth from you.” Anna stuck to
her story, claiming that all she’d said was true,
and that nothing was her fault. Anna’s face
assumed an unsettling blankness. Her eyes
were empty. I suddenly realised that I didn’t
know her at all.
The next day, I emailed the New York
County District Attorney’s Office, linking to an article about
Anna: “I think this girl is a con artist,” I wrote. About an hour
later, my mobile phone rang. “We think
you’re right,” a voice said. An assistant district attorney
confirmed that Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey) was
the subject of a criminal investigation.
O
n the last Wednesday in August 2018, I turned to
face a roomful of Manhattan jurors. I was the
victim of alleged grand larceny in the second
degree – grand larceny by deception. Projected
onto a screen was a spreadsheet of the account
charges related to Morocco. The total read $62,109.29.
I wasn’t the only one who had believed in Anna: all up
she was indicted on seven charges. She was accused of falsifying
documents to say she had overseas bank accounts worth
€60 million. In late 2016, she allegedly took these documents to
City National Bank to try to secure a $22 million loan for her art
foundation. When City National refused, she went to Fortress
Investment Group, which agreed to consider the loan if Anna
first provided $100,000.
In January 2017, Anna convinced City National to let her
overdraft her account by $100,000, and she gave that money
to Fortress. Fortress had used about $45,000 to verify her
assets when Anna backed out, telling me her father had got-
ten wind of the deal and didn’t like the terms. She kept the
remaining $55,000 from the City National loan, which For-
tress had returned. Apparently, that’s how she paid for her
lifestyle: 11 Howard, the dinners, the shopping.
Anna also deposited $160,000 in bad cheques into her
Citibank account and transferred $70,000 before they bounced.
She never paid for a $35,000 plane charter either.
The reality of Anna’s behind-the-scenes dealings remains
dizzying to this day – that she was orchestrating such elaborate
schemes while maintaining a believable, surface cool; wielding
her debit cards to pay for dinners, workouts and spa treat-
ments. She conjured a glittering, frictionless city – whatever
one wanted would be bought, wherever one wanted to go was a
plane trip away. The audacity of her performance sold itself,
until it collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. It’s part
of why I believed her – and continued to believe her: who would
think to make up such an elaborate tale and carry on like this
for so long? Who was she? How do you know who anyone is?
Back on June 9, Anna sent me $5000 via PayPal. I thought she
was stalling, but this gesture tugged at me. Knowing what I
know now, why did she give me anything at all?
Anna was arrested in October 2017. On April 25, 2019,
a jury found her guilty of various larceny and
theft charges and she was sentenced to up to 12
years’ prison. During the trial, she was admon-
ished for throwing tantrums when she couldn’t
get her stylist-curated outfits and drew unflat-
tering sketches of the prosecutor. But at sen-
tencing, she was humbled. Wearing a long-
sleeved black dress, she told the judge: “I
apologise for the mistakes I made.”
Anna told me once that her plans were
either going to work out or all go horribly wrong.
Now I see what she meant. It was a magic trick – I’m embar-
rassed to say that I was one of the props, and the audience, too.
Anna’s was a beautiful dream of New York, like one of those
nights that never seems to end. And then the bill arrives.
My Friend Anna (Hachette, $32.99) is out now.
“STRESS
CONSUMED
MY SLEEP AND
FUELLED MY DAYS.
I RESENTED HER
UNWILLINGNESS
TO BE STRAIGHT
WITH ME”
FROM LEFT Anna
Sorokin (aka Anna
Delvey) in New York
state Supreme Court
on grand larceny
charges; Rachel
explains to jurors how
Anna defrauded her.
PHOTOGRPAHY BY JOE SCHILDHORN/BFA/AUSTRALSCOPE; COURTESY OF RACHEL DELOACHE WILLIAMS; JAMES KEIVOM FOR DAILYMAIL.COM; INSTAGRAM
@ANNA.DLVV; AAP; GETTY IMAGES.
sharon
(sharon)
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