Sorry, Not Sorry

Anna Sorokin is a modern-day Gatsby who scammed New York’s high society and ended up in jail. Newly released, she tells Laura Pullman why she’s unapologetic and what she’ll do next.

- Laura Pullman

Anna Sorokin, the baby-faced con artist, is pouting and hair-flicking as the photographer snaps away. Fresh from prison, the so-called “fake heiress” is in her element: assistants are fussing over her, she’s head to toe in designer clothes and best of all, the photoshoot hasn’t cost her a cent. At one point Sorokin disappears – she has slipped back to the makeup chair to sneak in a free haircut. “Scammers gonna scam,” quips the stylist later. She’d taken a careful inventory of her wardrobe before the fashion-conscious crook showed up. Sorokin, 30, would have been unimpressed had she known they were worried about light fingers. “I just went for the big stuff. I’m not really a penny pincher,” she’d told me the previous day. “I wouldn’t be going for peanuts.”

The story of how Sorokin, the SoHo grifter, swindled New York’s high society has become one of the parables of the Instagram age. Arriving in Manhattan from Europe in 2013 using the name Anna Delvey, she became a Gatsbyesque figure: a mysterious German heiress to a $60 million dollar trust fund who dished out $100 tips, posted photos of herself living the high life, and had grand plans to open a private members’ arts club to rival Soho House.