NEW YORK – It is a weekday morning and Anna Sorokin is under house arrest in a New York City apartment building that has been classified as life-threatening. So she tries to draw outside attention and ease her boredom in the most mundane way possible: by starting a podcast.
“So many people got famous for bad things and were able to make something else out of it,” she recently told The Associated Press at her East Village apartment.
“The main theme of my podcast is productive rule-breaking,” she said of The Anna Delvey Show.
For now, she wants to redesign her public image to shake her reputation be a scammer and cheater.
“I am under house arrest 24/7. I’m only allowed to go to my parole check-ins, my ICE check-ins, and for medical emergencies,” she said. Behind her is a life-size crop of her likeness – created by artist Kenny Schachter – who, like Sorokin himself, wears an ankle monitoring device.
Under the name of Anna Delvey, she posed as a German heiress and lied about there being a $67 million trust fund to apply for loans, rack up debt and secure a historic building for a private arts club. She falsely claimed to be the daughter of a diplomat or an oil baron. She was arrested in late 2017 and convicted in 2019 of multiple counts of theft and larceny for extorting $275,000 from banks, hotels and wealthy New Yorkers.
she was sentenced to four to twelve years in prison. After three years in prison – about half of them in the Rikers Island prison complex – Sorokin, a German citizen, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She was later released after posting $10,000 bail in the fall domestic confinementup to a deportation hearing.
Now she’s making the most of the time at home by starting a weekly podcast series that she hopes will tell her side of the story and will feature various experts and celebrity guests. Sorokin’s Conversations with Emily Ratajkowski, Julia Fox, “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli and Ottessa Moshfegh will appear in upcoming episodes, according to Reunion Audio, the podcast company.
Sorokin’s cheating case became the basis for the Emmy-nominated film Netflix series “Inventing Anna” Based on a story from a New York magazine. Sorokin, played by three-time Emmy winner Julia Garner, said she was a consultant on the show but had “no control” over the end product.
“For me to say that I am rehabilitated would be to admit that there was something wrong with me from the start. I was just young. I made some mistakes,” she said. “I try to learn from them. My case, my criminal case is on direct appeal.
Inventing Anna was inspired by real events, but each episode contained a disclaimer that the story was true except for the made-up parts.
“I know some things definitely didn’t happen,” Sorokin said. “But it’s not really up to me to sit here and go through the series bit by bit because it’s literally a Shonda Rhimes interpretation.”
While Sorokin was in prison, her fan base grew — she even organized an art exhibition called Free Anna Delvey, which featured some of her drawings as well as the work of other artists. Since then, she’s been trying to sell pencil drawings for as much as $25,000.
The podcast gives her an opportunity to take back some control over the narrative, and she’s been thinking about doing so for a while.
“I wanted to start recording in prison, actually over the prison phone, because there are some rappers who record whole albums in prison. I was like, ‘Why not do a podcast?'” Sorokin said.
She’s never been able to because it’s “logistically difficult” to record episodes, according to the podcast company.
As for her time behind bars, Sorokin called prison a “transformational experience” and said she is no longer the person who was arrested in 2017.
“It’s been five, just over five years since I was arrested. Well, I just like it – I’ve changed. I’ve learned so much,” she said. She wears a white blouse, her signature black tie and dark pants, and her ankle bracelet is clearly visible.
She lifts her pant leg to demonstrate it and even explains how it works.
“Sometimes you see the banks are all doing the biggest scam on a large scale, but if you, I don’t know, cash a check for $500, it’s a scam,” Sorokin said.
This week, Sorokin’s guest on “The Anna Delvey Show” was model and rocker Julia Cumming of the New York band Sunflower Bean.
During a discussion about what makes a true New Yorker, Cumming says Sorokin’s impact on the city qualifies her.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever hung out with under house arrest,” she said. “So that’s a big accomplishment.”
Sorokin agreed that she didn’t know anyone under house arrest either.
Cumming replied, “It’s like you and Lindsay Lohan.” under house arrest in Los Angeles more than a decade ago.
Sorokin believes her notoriety makes it easy for her to lure guests to the show.
“I can bring pretty much anyone here,” she said with cheeky confidence.
But she won’t be able to get a guest: Theranos founders Elizabeth Holmeswho has just started an 11-year sentence for overseeing a blood test hoax that has become a parable of greed and hubris in Silicon Valley.
“I’d like to speak to Elizabeth. I definitely think she’s an interesting person,” Sorokin said. “I can relate to that a little better because we’re both women and we’ve been trying to build something.”
She would think about it too US Rep. George Santos on the podcast but doesn’t feel like she has much in common with him. The New York Republican who posed as a wealthy Wall Street dealmaker during his run for Congress and was recently indicted on a 13-part indictment that included fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.
“I’m sure some of this is true, but some isn’t,” Sorokin said of things written about Santos.
She added, “I get so many requests to give George Santos advice, jail advice or something like that. I kind of stayed away from that.”
So the theme of the Inventing Anna series is waiting for now to find out if people are listening to the podcast, which is out this week on all major platforms – and if their campaign to reinvent themselves is working.
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AP journalist Anna Furman reported from Los Angeles.
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