Hue Jackson’s Hall of Fame Scammers: Anna Sorokin

Welcome back to another exclusive sneak preview of the Hue Jackson School of Scam Artistry!

Some people may claim I’m a celebrity. I honestly don’t think that’s true. While I’ve been fortunate to pull off some pretty good cons in my time, especially with coaching the Browns, one of the things that many of the world’s best scammers in history hate is having to operate within the limelight. Sometimes it can be much too limiting – when the world is watching your every move, everywhere you go, there’s no opportunity to pull a fast one. A press conference as a football coach is one thing – but being on the cover of People magazine is something else entirely. That’s why I’m so impressed about the young lady we’ll be taking a look at this week…

ANNA SOROKIN: WANNABE HEIRESS

BORN: January 23, 1991

There are millions of girls out there who dream of somehow becoming a princess one day. Some, like Meghan Markle, actually become them – and find out quickly that it’s not what it’s cracked up to be at all. That said, for every instance where someone does genuinely become a member of the aristocracy, there are hundreds of others where people try, and fail, to reach new social heights. With this week’s Hall of Famer, she did a damn fine job of shooting for the moon – and hitting the stars along the way!

Anna Sorokin was born just as the Soviet Union was collapsing, living in a suburb of Moscow to middle-class parents. When Anna was 16, the family moved to Germany to try and better their economic fortunes; she bounced around the UK, France, and Westphalia as a young woman for a few years, before her master plan for fame and fortune began to take shape.

In 2013, Sorokin started referring to herself by her alias, “Anna Delvey” as part of a seriously committed plan to pass herself off as a wealthy German heiress. Later that year, Sorokin moved to New York, where her new identity would soon prove to pay serious dividends.

As an eligible young woman, the fauxcialite Delvey made a wide circle of new friends and acquaintances by claiming she had a €60 million trust fund back home – in Germany – and despite her apparent wealth, would routinely find it “challenging” to access all of that cash stored in various offshore accounts. How her family acquired that fortune? Well, it all depended on the day you ask her. Some days her father was an oil exec, other days a solar panel mogul, sometimes a diplomat. No matter – the important part was that Sorokin stuck rigorously to the bit.

While living in NYC, Sorokin lived at a whole host of five-star hotels, eating at award-winning restaurants, and generally living the high life with her new wealthy friends – who most typically ended up footing the bill for Anna thanks to her “forgetting” her wallet or acting confused when her credit card would get declined. Even paying back her friends was typically played off as no big deal – even as they consistently spent thousands of dollars at a time on their escapades. She even got her hooks into the business and art scenes of the city, determined to open a gallery, club and restaurant space at the historic Church Missions House at Park Avenue and 22nd Street. Posing as an entrepreneur, she had thousands of dollars worth of loans secured in an effort to actually bring this dream to life – perhaps the only part of the con that could have possibly ended up going legit.

As I have long since said – regardless of the initial premise of a con, it’s important that you stick to your guns and commit. Even the most harebrained schemes can end up working if you have a dedicated artist trying them out, and the same is true on the flip side, when a meticulously planned scheme will fall apart thanks to the inability of the scammer to commit. Remember, folks – scamming isn’t just a lifestyle – it defines your whole goddamn existence.

If there’s one thing that’s clear about Anna Sorokin’s scheme is that she wholeheartedly committed, despite facing mounting pressure. After four years of bilking wealthy people and hotels out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash, Sorokin was finally arrested in 2017 for grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, and theft. She’d stolen more than $275,000 from people and institutions – and thanks to some incredibly fallible lawyers, almost managed to put together a $22 million loan from Fortress Investments, thanks to somehow convincing City National to grant her a $100,000 overdraft.

On May 9th, 2019, Anna Sorokin was sentenced to four to twelve years in New York state prison, fined $24,000, and ordered to pay $199,000 in restitution for her thefts. She got out of prison on parole on February 11th, 2021, and promptly secured a deal with Netflix to sell her life story’s rights for a documentary being produced by Shonda Rhimes and starring Julia Garner as Sorokin. While most of the money from the Netflix deal will be used to help settle her debts, Anna Sorokin appears to be picking up right where she left off – still going by the name Anna Delvey, posting constantly online about her world travelling and shopping extravaganzas, and generally seeking the limelight. While she’d expressed remorse for her thefts in her parole hearing, a much more recent interview with her has her on-record clearly stating “Crime pays, in a way.” Another has her quoted as saying her time spent in a Rikers cell was “therapeutic.” A true queen to scammers everywhere.

***

Never. Stop. Grifting. Life is a grind out there – whether you’re on the gridiron, in the weight room, or at the card table. If you want to be the best, you’ve got to WORK like the best – and don’t let little things like prison time scare you. The world is your oyster – all you have to do is reach out and take it! (Off someone else’s plate, when they’re not looking.)

Don’t forget – dial 1-900-FAST-BUX now and you can score yourself a limited-time offer on NFT clips of the 2017 Browns season – Corey Coleman’s dropped pass against the Steelers in the final game of the season to stave off 0-16, and failing, is gonna be an ALL-TIME memory. Get yours now! DON’T THINK JUST BUY.

***

Information from this article taken from here, here, here, here, here, and here. Banner image by The Maestro.