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New Scandal for Fake Heiress Ann 'Delvey' Sorokin · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Why won't she go away?
0:09
Speaker 1: Why does she keep resurfacing again? Anna Delvy aka Anna Sorkin,
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Speaker 1: the con artist, has reared her ugly head. Yes, she's
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Speaker 1: at it again. The fake heiress caught in a new scandal,
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Speaker 1: this time involving bunnies. You know, the hippie hoppy type
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Speaker 1: of a little creature. Bunnies. Yes, bunnies. The con artists
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Speaker 1: who ripped her friends and others off to the tune
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Speaker 1: of around one hundred thousand dollars plus. Anna Delvy now
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Speaker 1: accused of cruelly dumping baby bunnies in a public park
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Speaker 1: after she used them in a photo shoot, left them
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Speaker 1: out there to die. It never ends with this woman.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I see Grace. This is Crime Stories, and
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Speaker 1: I want to thank you for being with us. Yes,
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Speaker 1: the fake heiress con artist caught in a brand new scandal,
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Speaker 1: this time about bunnies. The Russian whose real name is
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Speaker 1: Anna Sorkin, known for posing as a German heiress to
1:24
Speaker 1: climb the social ladder in Manhattan and defrauding a series
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Speaker 1: of banks, hotels, and individuals. I mentioned over one hundred
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Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and that was her friends. But she ripped
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Speaker 1: off other people to the tune of about two hundred
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Speaker 1: and seventy five thousand dollars. That's over a quarter of
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Speaker 1: a million dollars. And now she uses little bunnies in
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Speaker 1: a photoshoot and then they're found abandoned in a public
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Speaker 1: park in Brooklyn. Now, Delvy squear she has no idea
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Speaker 1: how the bunnies were found for her photoshoot, and some
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Speaker 1: teen kit assistant has amazingly taken responsibility. According to a
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Speaker 1: Reddit user, a rabbit named Parker was rescued from a
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Speaker 1: park and placed in foster care. Three days later, another
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Speaker 1: rabbit is found in Prospect Park. That bunny saved as well.
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Speaker 1: Neighbors and others were alerted and everyone noticed. Both of
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Speaker 1: the rabbits look identical to the ones penned by Anna
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Speaker 1: Delviy on Instagram. The images show her posing on York
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Speaker 1: streets with two bunnies on leeds Well. The internet went
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Speaker 1: wild to that. Delvy goes online and insists the bunnies
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Speaker 1: were borrowed for the shute and they are safe at
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Speaker 1: home with their owners. She put that on insta. Initially,
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Speaker 1: the assistant did the bunnies were found in the park abandoned,
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Speaker 1: but later released a statement claiming that he was responsible.
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Speaker 1: Under other controversy surrounding Anna Delvi, the fake Heiress. Do
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Speaker 1: you remember what happened? Because I sure do. Let's take
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Speaker 1: a little flashback.
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Speaker 2: With an extravagant lifestyle and a seemingly endless supply of money,
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Speaker 2: delv was an enigma that was made for the age
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Speaker 2: of Instagram, always at the right place with the right people,
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Speaker 2: living her best life, but with no apparent cause for
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Speaker 2: her fame. Her circle of acquaintances was fed various stories
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Speaker 2: as to how she accumulated her vast wealth.
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Speaker 1: Her father was a Russian billionaire, a Russian.
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Speaker 2: Diplomat, an oil tycoon, a Russian antiques collector, or a
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Speaker 2: solar energy capitalist. While many parts of Delvy's story were fluid,
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Speaker 2: some things were consistent. Delvy made no effort to hide
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Speaker 2: her internship at the Paris magazine Purple, and made it
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Speaker 2: very clear that her dream was to open a soho
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Speaker 2: house for art.
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Speaker 1: And quote upset fake German era and a Serrokean guilty
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Speaker 1: of grand larceny after a life of fake ripping people
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Speaker 1: off to nearly a quarter of a million dollars that
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Speaker 1: we know of, who would believe a Russian heiress and
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Speaker 1: fork over thousands of dollars? And in court she was
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Speaker 1: more upset about her designer clothing wardrobe than she was
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Speaker 1: about being found guilty. Now that's unusual. This girl and
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Speaker 1: a serrocan also known as Anna Delviy, somehow manages to
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Speaker 1: con so ho Elite out of a quarter of a
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Speaker 1: million dollars. Joining me in all star lineup Jeff Cortize,
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Speaker 1: former FBI special agent. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of
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Speaker 1: Red Flags, Doctor William in July psychologist in John Limley
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Speaker 1: crimeonline dot Com investigative reporter John Limley help me out.
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Speaker 1: This girl shows up. Her skin is so payd.
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Speaker 3: She looks like a ghost, and she's got this long
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Speaker 3: brown hair parted usually slightly on the side, big glasses,
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Speaker 3: and the hair hangs down like curtains.
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Speaker 1: Over her face. You can barely see the eyes, you know,
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Speaker 1: the hair is so close down. I can't see her face.
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Speaker 1: That makes me suspicious. But who would buy into my
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Speaker 1: dad is a Russian billionaire? Give me your money? Oops,
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Speaker 1: I forgot my credit card. What happened? Let's just start
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Speaker 1: at the beginning.
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Speaker 4: Well, Nancy apparently a lot of people were just hungry
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Speaker 4: to buy into this story. If New York City is
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Speaker 4: a city of dreams, which we hear it called all
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Speaker 4: the time, Anna had enough for the entire island. She
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Speaker 4: had longed to be a member of the upper echelon
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Speaker 4: of Manhattan system.
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Speaker 1: I understand something, John Linley, Crime Online Investigator reporter. Did
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Speaker 1: you just call her giant fraud? Ripping people off tens
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Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars? Including one woman that took the stand,
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Speaker 1: a working class person who go on an all expense
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Speaker 1: paid trip with her to Morocco and she gets stiffed
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Speaker 1: with a sixty five thousand dollars bill. Wait are you
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Speaker 1: calling that a dream? How it? Wait? How dare you person?
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Speaker 4: Dream? Is another person's night?
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Speaker 1: You find yourself with cliches? Don't the American dream my
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Speaker 1: rear end, Jeff Cortiese, I call it something a lot
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Speaker 1: different than the American dream?
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Speaker 5: Oh?
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Speaker 6: Absolutely, I mean this was a at least on the
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Speaker 6: front end, a well executed fraud. Over the long term,
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Speaker 6: it didn't It didn't have the legs to remain sustainable
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Speaker 6: a long term.
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Speaker 1: I mean she managed to pull it off. Wendy Patrick,
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Speaker 1: for you know what, two years. I forgot how long
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Speaker 1: she managed to pull the wool over everybody's eyes, going
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Speaker 1: on trips to Morocco, staying at I think it's eleven Howard,
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Speaker 1: some ritzy. I don't even know how you find that
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Speaker 1: hotel in New York. It's one of those places. I
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Speaker 1: don't think it's even marked. Only rich people go there.
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Speaker 1: Wendy Patrick, what is what happened to John Limley, the
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Speaker 1: Voice of Reason? He just called this the American Dream? What?
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Speaker 7: Well?
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Speaker 8: I think John Linley, what he was talking about is
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Speaker 8: there are there are some misguided, vulnerable people that really
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Speaker 8: are subjected to social predators like Anna. And you know,
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Speaker 8: some people just are absolutely you guys mentioned the glamor,
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Speaker 8: the glitz. It's like they want to believe and this
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Speaker 8: fake it till you make it lifestyle. You know, nobody
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Speaker 8: even took the time to say, show me the money,
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Speaker 8: show me the fun, show me the corroboration behind your
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Speaker 8: wild stories.
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Speaker 1: Because caught up in the moment in an Instagram.
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Speaker 8: Savvy society, people want to be in the company of
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Speaker 8: people like Anna, and sadly, as a prosecutor, I am
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Speaker 8: just we are just absolutely just terrified of people like
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Speaker 8: this that are able to so easily infiltrate our social
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Speaker 8: networking to doctor Williams you Lye, psychologist, author of a
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Speaker 8: dark and they did a.
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Speaker 1: Quit her off, which I was shocked about because this
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Speaker 1: girl actually took the stand Graham larceny for a luedgedly
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Speaker 1: stealing sixty two thousand dollars from a friend that she said,
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Speaker 1: come along, I'll pay for everything on a trip to Morocco. Okay,
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Speaker 1: I think they actually punished the friend because when you
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Speaker 1: go on a luxurious trip to Morocco, you stay in
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Speaker 1: a five star hotel. They went to Spa treatments that
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Speaker 1: were costing like three hundred dollars a treatment, whatever. That
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Speaker 1: treatment may be laying in mud, getting their nails whatever,
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Speaker 1: three hundred. I think the jerry punished that friend for
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Speaker 1: going along with the excess. Doctor July.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, at worse, Nancy, what you're looking at
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Speaker 5: in cases like this, at worst is a psychopathological level
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Speaker 5: of narcissism. At best, what you're looking at as a
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Speaker 5: person who has so much greed and desire to please
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Speaker 5: herself that she doesn't care what the consequences are for
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Speaker 5: other people. You were asking earlier, and I just want
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Speaker 5: to address what you were asking earlier about why and
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Speaker 5: how can this sort of thing happen. We're all baffled
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Speaker 5: when we see this, but it's age old. It's a
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Speaker 5: tale as old as time. Charlottan comes in and fools everyone.
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Speaker 5: So there's a part of people that are looking at
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Speaker 5: this who want to believe this because they want to
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Speaker 5: hang out with the person who has this kind of
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Speaker 5: social these types of social credentials, and they want to
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Speaker 5: believe that she's an heiress so that they can be
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Speaker 5: with her. And people are blaming social media. It's not
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Speaker 5: the fault of social media. Social media is just a
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Speaker 5: facilitator to the neediness of other people who want to
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Speaker 5: believe and accept it by.
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Speaker 1: Are you piling on everybody on the panel except Cortiese
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Speaker 1: Thank goodness, as keeps talking about the Instagram and society.
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Speaker 1: You know what, Instagram didn't have a dang thing to
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Speaker 1: do with this. It was all mistaing crime stories with
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Speaker 1: Nancy Gray. Fake heiress Anna delviy hits the headlines again,
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Speaker 1: this time about abandoned bunnies of all things. Okay, Anna
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Speaker 1: delviy I Guess is one of her names. Annasorkin is
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Speaker 1: another name. She is Russian from a middle class family
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Speaker 1: who presented herself in New York as a German heiress,
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Speaker 1: socialite and cond people at a nearly three hundred thousand dollars,
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Speaker 1: including fantastic hotels, amazing five star trips, fancy restaurants, clothes,
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Speaker 1: you name it again. She is linked with scandal, go
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Speaker 1: away work like the rest of us. For Pete's sake,
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Speaker 1: do you remember the trial? I remember the whole thing
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Speaker 1: was delayed because she refused to come out unless she
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Speaker 1: had in designer clothes. Oh my stars. But let's take
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Speaker 1: a walk down memory lane. Her parents' hard working middle
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Speaker 1: class people that she borrowed a ton of money borrowed,
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Speaker 1: I eastole a ton of money from them as well. Hey,
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Speaker 1: but she didn't just create a different identity her parents.
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Speaker 1: I think the dad drives a truck, and I know
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Speaker 1: what that's like. My dad, as you know, worked on
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Speaker 1: the railroad. My mom started as a bank teller. My
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Speaker 1: grandfather drove an ice truck and a school bus, anything
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Speaker 1: to put the food on the table. But she not
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Speaker 1: only assumed different an identity for herself, but she also
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Speaker 1: created a whole team of imaginary assistants, an assistant, an accountant,
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Speaker 1: a manager Limley. Is this true of her imaginary assistance?
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Speaker 9: Well?
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Speaker 4: And some were not so imaginary. She even had the
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Speaker 4: concierge at a hotel essentially on her staff. At her
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Speaker 4: Beck and Call, she was able to convince people of
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Speaker 4: not only her wealth but all of her aspirations, her dreams.
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Speaker 4: She really wanted to build this members only arts club
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Speaker 4: on Park Avenue South and was even working to get
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Speaker 4: the financing for it, and was not too far awaiting.
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Speaker 1: This John Lanley. She lied to a bank using phony records.
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Speaker 10: Anna went too far when she attempted to take out
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Speaker 10: a loan for twenty two million dollars to finance a
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Speaker 10: visual arts center she called the Anna Deelvi Foundation. In all,
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Speaker 10: Anna reportedly scammed a total of two hundred and seventy
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Speaker 10: five thousand dollars, and his double life began to crumble
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Speaker 10: as hotels went after her unpaid debts and banks began
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Speaker 10: to investigate her alleged assets.
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Speaker 1: Wow that's Jesse Palmer over at Daily Mail TV. Wow Okay,
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Speaker 1: So friends and acquaintances. Say Sorokan spent years playing the
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Speaker 1: part of an art obsessed German heiress. Sometimes she'd be Russian.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes she'd be German. She had an accent to go
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Speaker 1: with it, rubbing shoulders with the fashion elite at Paris
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Speaker 1: Fashion Week, frequently spotted in London night spots. Then those
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Speaker 1: who knew her saw her at a party in Berlin.
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Speaker 1: She told everybody she had just flown in on a
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Speaker 1: private jet. How did she pull it off? Scamming nearly
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Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollars. It was only when these ritzy
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Speaker 1: hotels in New York went after her to pay her
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Speaker 1: bills that the whole thing fell apart. But what really
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Speaker 1: amazed me. You know, I don't know if you do
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Speaker 1: this or not. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red
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Speaker 1: Flags on Amazon. Wendy, under the constitution, you can't force
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Speaker 1: a defendant into court in handcuffs or leg irons or
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Speaker 1: waist shackle. You can't force them to come in in
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Speaker 1: inmate jumpsuit, prison blues or orange or stripes, whatever the
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Speaker 1: case may be. But I would always keep a jacket
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Speaker 1: and pants and a couple of different sizes in my office,
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Speaker 1: So when a defendant would show up on Monday morning
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Speaker 1: trial calendar and say, oh, yeah, I want to go
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Speaker 1: to trial. But I don't have a suit. I go, oh,
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Speaker 1: I do have a suit for you. But she was
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Speaker 1: more concerned about what she wore to court every day.
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Speaker 1: She had She actually had a personal dresser dialist dressing
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Speaker 1: her for court. Wendy.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, Nancy, what you're describing really is something
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Speaker 8: hopefully the judge will take.
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Speaker 1: Into considering it sentencing.
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Speaker 8: Because it's this entire mentality of I don't want to
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Speaker 8: say just not getting it. That would be too kind.
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Speaker 8: It's a complete underappreciation, or I should say, non appreciation
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Speaker 8: for the fact that.
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Speaker 1: The rest of us work for a living. Her family
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Speaker 1: works for a living.
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Speaker 8: There is so much more to life than clothes and
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Speaker 8: appearances an image.
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Speaker 10: You know.
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Speaker 8: One of the things that distinguishes this case is the
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Speaker 8: fact that this over emphasis on image, on money, on
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Speaker 8: glamour sounds like it absolutely overrode every ounce of judgment
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Speaker 8: that she had and to take that into the courtroom,
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Speaker 8: as you mentioned, Nancy is probably a little bit beyond
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Speaker 8: the pale.
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Speaker 1: So well, listen to our friends and inside Edition. This
14:56
Speaker 1: is Diane mcinernie.
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Speaker 8: This one may look like she is dressed for a
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Speaker 8: fashion show it and her designer does, but the wannabe
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Speaker 8: socialite is actually on trial for swindling hundreds of thousands
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Speaker 8: of dollars from unsuspecting people.
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Speaker 1: She was so concerned about how she looked in court
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Speaker 1: she actually hired a stylist.
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Speaker 11: Is she in a courtroom or at a red carpet event.
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Speaker 11: Annasorkin is accused of posing as an heiress to live
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Speaker 11: an extravagant lifestyle, But it's what she's wearing to trial
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Speaker 11: that is making headlines. The twenty seven year old defendant
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Speaker 11: showed up wearing a form fitting black dress with a
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Speaker 11: plunging neckline and choker necklace. It's a look that could
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Speaker 11: backfire a Warren stylist Don Karen.
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Speaker 7: Black dress definitely a no no. A hyper sexualize her.
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Speaker 7: It makes her appear to be like a seductress. The
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Speaker 7: choker kind of shows to me that she's trying to
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Speaker 7: be overtly sexy. The more sexy she appears to be,
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Speaker 7: it hurts her.
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Speaker 11: Sore Kin is so obsessed with her clothes she refused
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Speaker 11: to enter the courtroom because the outfit she was given
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Speaker 11: to wear was not up to her standards. The angry
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Speaker 11: judge told her this is unacceptable and inappropriate. This is
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Speaker 11: not a fashion show, But Sorrikin's lawyer, Todd Spodek, says
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Speaker 11: accounts of his client delaying the trial because of fashion
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Speaker 11: are being blown out of proportion.
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Speaker 12: It's not that she didn't want to come out only
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Speaker 12: because of the clothes. She's going through a major criminal
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Speaker 12: trial that's publicized every day. It's emotional, and it's her life.
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Speaker 1: Don't cry too much for Anna Serrokan. She was living
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Speaker 1: a life that many people, not me, but many people
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Speaker 1: dream of. She made a show of proving she belonged
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Speaker 1: with the rich and famous, decked out in signature Selene glasses,
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Speaker 1: Gucci sandals, high in botes from net to porte at
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Speaker 1: Last Walker, she usually hold up in a four hundred
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Speaker 1: dollars a night room for months on in at Manhattan's
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Speaker 1: very very luxurious eleven Howard Hotel. Concierge at the hotel
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Speaker 1: said they became friends when she would repeatedly routinely pass
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Speaker 1: out CRISP one hundred dollar tips to both them and
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Speaker 1: Uber drivers. When I hear the words CRISP one hundred dollars,
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Speaker 1: how many hundred dollar bills do you have, Jackie? I
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Speaker 1: don't think I have any, So Jeff cartiese former FBI
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Speaker 1: special agent. When I hear the word crisp one hundred
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Speaker 1: dollar bills, that means you just got them out of
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Speaker 1: an ATM or from the bank. So how does she
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Speaker 1: manage to defraud the bank to get cash, to tip
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Speaker 1: concierge to fake for her. Yeah, that's a great question,
17:38
Speaker 1: you know.
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Speaker 6: I think it's a numbers game in many respects. There
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Speaker 6: were multiple banks engaged in her activity. She appears, based
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Speaker 6: on the information, limited her trips back to the same Well,
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Speaker 6: though she would go back to the same bake.
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Speaker 1: On occasion for.
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Speaker 6: Certain certain banking activity. She did share the wealth amongst
18:01
Speaker 6: the banks within New York so as not to draw
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Speaker 6: too much attention over an extended period of time.
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Speaker 1: Well, what I understand that she did, and I'm going
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Speaker 1: to have to get clarity on this, is that she
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Speaker 1: would provide fake bank records to one bank and then
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Speaker 1: they she was trying to get a massive loan for
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Speaker 1: twenty two million, so she they wanted a down payment,
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Speaker 1: so she faked records and got I don't know fifty
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Speaker 1: to one hundred grand from one bank and used that
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Speaker 1: money to get a loan as a down payment on
18:33
Speaker 1: a loan a bigger loan at another bank, none of
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Speaker 1: the banks realizing what the others were doing. Another thing
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Speaker 1: that really fascinates me, doctor Williams July, and not in
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Speaker 1: a good way. It's like looking at a tarantula under
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Speaker 1: a glass box. Okay, that sort of fascination is the
18:49
Speaker 1: way she carried on this big, huge imaginary life. She
18:54
Speaker 1: would splash out on shopping sprees at boutiques, very expensive
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Speaker 1: person training sessions and beautician appointments, and she would always
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Speaker 1: bring along a friend and pay for them and they
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Speaker 1: would be all impressed. The social elite, as they call themselves,
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Speaker 1: would go to lavish in large dinners for celebs, are as, CEOs,
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Speaker 1: all in restaurants there in Soho And if you do
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Speaker 1: look at her online, she's always drinking a big glass
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Speaker 1: of wine at some beautiful location. How can an adult
19:30
Speaker 1: have that type of an imaginary life. I mean, I
19:33
Speaker 1: know when children have an imaginary friend, there's all sorts
19:36
Speaker 1: of psychological reasons for that, maybe just security.
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Speaker 5: But an adult, certainly people can have these types of
19:42
Speaker 5: imaginary lives and they're going to recruit other people. Just
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Speaker 5: because of the chronological age does not make a person
19:51
Speaker 5: have the maturation that they should have. And then that
19:53
Speaker 5: can be from a lot of different things. But certainly
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Speaker 5: as much as she can get other people to buy
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Speaker 5: into this, then that's because she's going to continue and
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Speaker 5: she's going to expand that imaginary life. And people can
20:06
Speaker 5: be very charming. They can be very off putting. Excuse me,
20:09
Speaker 5: they can be very charming, and they can be very persuasive,
20:12
Speaker 5: and they can get other people to buy in. There
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Speaker 5: are people that can go into banks and they can
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Speaker 5: fake a story and they can get people to believe
20:18
Speaker 5: that it happens every day, and this is a person
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Speaker 5: who can do that and the imaginary fast parts of this.
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Speaker 5: I mean, I haven't examined her, so I can't go
20:27
Speaker 5: so far to say she's delusional or anything like that,
20:29
Speaker 5: but clearly she has the ability the maybe a pathological
20:36
Speaker 5: type of charm. Some people can do that. And also
20:39
Speaker 5: you can remember, other people are buying into this because
20:41
Speaker 5: the banks aren't changing credentials properly.
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Speaker 13: Under the name Anna Delvi, she arrived in New York
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Speaker 13: with a high priced wardrobe and was known for handing
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Speaker 13: out one hundred dollars cash tips, reportedly saying at different
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Speaker 13: points that her father was a diplomat and an oil baron
20:55
Speaker 13: or involved in the solar panel business, none of which
20:57
Speaker 13: are the case. People who knew her said she often
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Speaker 13: others to use their credit cards to cover cab and
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Speaker 13: plane fairs and then failing to repay them.
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Speaker 1: Our friend Michael Sisak at Time Magazine online, Yeah, there
21:08
Speaker 1: was one story that came out at trial how she
21:13
Speaker 1: hired a PR firm to organize her birthday party in Soho.
21:17
Speaker 1: It emerged she never paid the bill. During her stay
21:21
Speaker 1: at eleven Howard, she struck up a friend there. In
21:26
Speaker 1: addition to the concierges to and as for the recommendations
21:30
Speaker 1: for the very vetty vetty best food in Soho, we
21:35
Speaker 1: also learned that on one occasion she invited friends to
21:39
Speaker 1: dinner at Soho s and bro and the friend ended
21:44
Speaker 1: up paying a whopper massive bill when Soroken's twelve credit
21:49
Speaker 1: cards were all declined, but Sorokin paid her back triple
21:55
Speaker 1: the amount the following day in cash. So learned that
22:01
Speaker 1: she would go to unique treatments like infrared saunas in
22:07
Speaker 1: the East Village, go out to dinner after celebrity training
22:13
Speaker 1: sessions with Casey Duke, which Soroken also paid for John Limley.
22:19
Speaker 1: How did she get money from one bank to get
22:23
Speaker 1: a loan from another bank? How did that work?
22:25
Speaker 4: It's a very interesting line to follow. How she did this.
22:30
Speaker 4: She would go to a bank and ask for a
22:35
Speaker 4: certain line of credit based on a lot of times
22:39
Speaker 4: just a promise of the fact that she had millions
22:43
Speaker 4: overseas that she could repay the loan, and she would
22:48
Speaker 4: go from one bank with that money to another bank
22:53
Speaker 4: and get an even larger In fact, here's an example.
22:58
Speaker 4: She talked to an examp to an executive with City
23:01
Speaker 4: National Bank into giving her a line of credit on
23:05
Speaker 4: her account for one hundred thousand dollars, promising to repay
23:09
Speaker 4: it with a wire transfer from a European account. She
23:13
Speaker 4: used that money in a failed attempt to secure a
23:17
Speaker 4: twenty five million dollar loan from Fortress Investment Group, and
23:22
Speaker 4: the one of the managing directors at Fortress has said
23:26
Speaker 4: that she ran into problems providing details about the origin
23:31
Speaker 4: of her wealth. Someone actually thought to ask about that.
23:34
Speaker 1: You know, her lines became more and more spectacular. Wendy Patchett,
23:37
Speaker 1: California Prosecutor. In fact, she even managed to charter a
23:41
Speaker 1: private plane on one occasion with absolutely zero money, Wendy,
23:46
Speaker 1: how do you do that?
23:47
Speaker 5: Yeah?
23:48
Speaker 8: The level of sophistication Nancy, as John was explaining and
23:51
Speaker 8: as we know now looking back, was absolutely stunning. It
23:54
Speaker 8: was almost as if she was daring authorities to catch
23:57
Speaker 8: her in this escalating scheme sophistication. And you know, the
24:01
Speaker 8: answer to how you do that is the same way
24:03
Speaker 8: we've commit we see people committing other crimes. Is sometimes
24:07
Speaker 8: people are so trusting because image matters. You know, this
24:10
Speaker 8: is something I talk about in my book.
24:11
Speaker 1: We tend to attribute.
24:13
Speaker 8: All these positive qualities to somebody who comes across as believable,
24:17
Speaker 8: whether they're pretty, or we like what they say, or
24:19
Speaker 8: we're enamored with their axe and or their clothes. All
24:22
Speaker 8: the types of things that Anna used to get ahead
24:25
Speaker 8: can fool other people into letting them acquire the kind
24:28
Speaker 8: of wealth and as you point out, tangible benefits that
24:31
Speaker 8: this young lady did.
24:32
Speaker 1: Don Lenley tell me about the lux treatment she got
24:35
Speaker 1: in Morocco where she ended up stiffing her friend with
24:37
Speaker 1: the bail.
24:38
Speaker 4: Well, when they went to Marrakesh, she went with a
24:44
Speaker 4: friend and she had offered to pay for everything. Now
24:48
Speaker 4: her friend actually offered to help pay, but she said, no, no, no,
24:53
Speaker 4: you work hard for your money, harder for your money
24:56
Speaker 4: than I do. This is my treat, and they would
24:59
Speaker 4: go out for a round of drinks and oops, she
25:04
Speaker 4: forgot her credit cards. So she would ask, you know,
25:07
Speaker 4: very quietly, if the friend could you know, just cover
25:10
Speaker 4: this one check. And that would happen over and over
25:13
Speaker 4: and over again, and this friend, in the end ended
25:17
Speaker 4: up covering the sixty two thousand dollars cost of the flights, dining, shopping,
25:24
Speaker 4: and the stay at a hotel where they had a
25:26
Speaker 4: private villa with a courtyard, a pool, and a butler,
25:30
Speaker 4: all the extravagance that you might say was fit for,
25:34
Speaker 4: say a Kardashian.
25:36
Speaker 1: A sixty two thousand dollars vacation that is more than
25:41
Speaker 1: most people make an entire year. While in Marrakesh, Morocco
25:48
Speaker 1: Soroken aka delv took part in all the activities the
25:53
Speaker 1: hotel had to offer. For instance, they took private tennis lessons.
25:58
Speaker 1: They ate breakfast poolside. A butler would deliver them fresh
26:03
Speaker 1: watermelons and bottles of rose. They roamed the gardens, relaxed,
26:12
Speaker 1: swam in the villa's private pool, took a tour of
26:17
Speaker 1: the wine cellar eight dinner with live Moroccan music, before
26:23
Speaker 1: capping off their knights with cocktails at the Churchill Bar.
26:28
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a trip that most people only
26:32
Speaker 1: dream of, and now here's miss thing, having a nearly
26:36
Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollars vacation built on crime.
26:41
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, Nancy, the best things in life are free,
26:45
Speaker 8: and everybody knows that. So when you look at a
26:47
Speaker 8: story like this, part of I think the offense that
26:50
Speaker 8: everyone is taking is to use crime and criminal activity
26:54
Speaker 8: to build a fake world where people pay the kind
26:57
Speaker 8: of money that most of us would never do even
26:59
Speaker 8: if we have it. You talk about the value of
27:01
Speaker 8: hard work the way we were all raised. It sounds
27:04
Speaker 8: like those she surrounded herself were really taken with the
27:07
Speaker 8: fact that someone they believed was as rich and famous
27:09
Speaker 8: as she was would be interested in them.
27:12
Speaker 1: That is a basic human need.
27:14
Speaker 8: Ironically, that was being satisfied through criming through, as you
27:19
Speaker 8: pointed out earlier, having this imaginary friend that's larger than.
27:23
Speaker 1: Like crime stories with Nancy Grace, Anna delviy Aka Anahsauric
27:37
Speaker 1: and the con artists back in the news, this time
27:40
Speaker 1: to the forefront over abandoned bunnies used in a photo
27:44
Speaker 1: shoot and then abandoned in public parks. Well, eagle eyed
27:48
Speaker 1: Reddit users notice they look very similar to the ones
27:52
Speaker 1: in Anna Delvi's photo shoot, and bam, it all came
27:57
Speaker 1: crashing down. Now a teen assistant says it's all his
28:00
Speaker 1: fault that he lied, and he takes responsibility. Okay, whatever
28:06
Speaker 1: you say. I'm still hung up on the three hundred
28:10
Speaker 1: thousand dollars she scamned. Remember that. You know. I don't
28:13
Speaker 1: know about you, Jeff Cortize, FBI special agent. But I
28:17
Speaker 1: loved it when I would of course, the prosecutor gets
28:20
Speaker 1: in front of an entire jury panel and reads the
28:23
Speaker 1: indictment before you begin jury's selection, so everybody knows who's
28:28
Speaker 1: charged with what and what all the accounts are. And
28:31
Speaker 1: I would love it to say state versus Jeff Cortize
28:35
Speaker 1: aka Charlie Tuna aka the Hammer aka Blah blah blah,
28:43
Speaker 1: and so forth and so on. I would love reading
28:46
Speaker 1: out ten or twelve aliases. And by the time you've
28:49
Speaker 1: done reading that, the jury just looks at the person
28:51
Speaker 1: and goes, You're so, you're guilty, You're guilty. Why are
28:56
Speaker 1: you Why do you have twelve aliases, and this girl,
28:59
Speaker 1: I'm telling it, not only had aliases, but she had
29:03
Speaker 1: fake assistant. She lied about her mom and dad who
29:08
Speaker 1: they really are. The reality is that her father was
29:12
Speaker 1: a truck driver and he went on to work at
29:18
Speaker 1: or start a heating and air conditioned business. The friends
29:24
Speaker 1: in school called her Barbie and her favorite movie was
29:28
Speaker 1: Mean Girls. And I don't think that's any of that
29:33
Speaker 1: is good. Okay, that means nothing good. Jeff Cartize, No,
29:37
Speaker 1: I agree one hundred percent. You hit it on the head.
29:39
Speaker 6: You know, the minute individuals start layering themselves with aliases
29:44
Speaker 6: and aka's, you know, they're putting up walls and barriers
29:48
Speaker 6: that any jury is going to be able to see through.
29:51
Speaker 6: You know, she really executed a well thought out plan
29:55
Speaker 6: against the banks, using multiple techniques and methods to cite
30:00
Speaker 6: and money from them.
30:02
Speaker 1: You know, from from top to bottom.
30:04
Speaker 6: She exploited what people want to see and exploited the
30:10
Speaker 6: type of lifestyle that people want to have to the
30:12
Speaker 6: extent that you know, if I was going to run undercover,
30:14
Speaker 6: I would have done many of the techniques that she
30:17
Speaker 6: did in order to manipulate my audience.
30:20
Speaker 1: Well, another aspect to this, John Lemley, is I remember
30:24
Speaker 1: one day when John David came running home and went,
30:27
Speaker 1: so and so's mom is so cool. She works for
30:31
Speaker 1: Chick fil A and she gets free T shirts and
30:36
Speaker 1: she gets this, and she gets that. I think the
30:39
Speaker 1: lady who's very lovely was in marketing or PR and
30:43
Speaker 1: would bring home, you know, like a T shirt or
30:46
Speaker 1: a moodcu or what whatever they had. And I thought
30:50
Speaker 1: briefly of creating a different persona to try to impress
30:56
Speaker 1: John David's friends, who were then four years old. Okay,
31:00
Speaker 1: but I just decided, no, I'm just going to stick
31:02
Speaker 1: with the truth, you know, and let the chips fall
31:04
Speaker 1: where they may. John Lumley, I mean that would hurt
31:09
Speaker 1: me if I found out the twins were lying about
31:14
Speaker 1: their mom and dad, that what we are isn't good
31:18
Speaker 1: enough to fit in to their self image they're projecting,
31:23
Speaker 1: that would really hurt my feelers.
31:24
Speaker 4: And that's exactly the way her parents felt about the
31:27
Speaker 4: whole thing. They actually did help fund her through college
31:32
Speaker 4: and as she was getting out on her own, but
31:34
Speaker 4: there was never any sort of trust fund. She moved
31:39
Speaker 4: to Germany in two thousand and seven, and after she
31:43
Speaker 4: dropped out of college, she interned in public Relations, before
31:47
Speaker 4: then moving to Paris and became an intern at Purple Magazine.
31:51
Speaker 4: Once she arrived in New York City, she just somehow
31:55
Speaker 4: managed to be in all the sort of right places.
31:58
Speaker 4: And she was this German heiress, according to her, with
32:02
Speaker 4: a father that you would think.
32:05
Speaker 1: With me, Wait a minute, I thought she was supposed
32:07
Speaker 1: to be a Russian heiress.
32:08
Speaker 4: Well, no, she was from Russia, but she told people
32:13
Speaker 4: she was a German heiress. What's really funny, though, is
32:16
Speaker 4: that her German, according to a lot of people, was terrible.
32:20
Speaker 13: M h.
32:21
Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to what the
32:23
Speaker 1: defense claims in closing arguments.
32:25
Speaker 9: She had to fake it until she could make it.
32:27
Speaker 9: Those words from the defendant's own attorney, who claimed she
32:30
Speaker 9: never intended to commit a crime, But prosecutors call her
32:33
Speaker 9: a fraud and a liar who would do almost anything
32:36
Speaker 9: to prolong her life of luxury. This morning, the fate
32:41
Speaker 9: of an alleged scam artist is now in the hands
32:43
Speaker 9: of a jury, both sides wrapping up arguments for a
32:48
Speaker 9: case that's drawn international outrage. The style savvy defendant even
32:52
Speaker 9: turning heads in court wearing an animal print dress. She
32:56
Speaker 9: called herself Anna Delvi, a fashionable globetrotter. Executors say, was
33:00
Speaker 9: pretending to be a high flying German heiress living a
33:04
Speaker 9: fairytale life of glitz and glam among Manhattan's elite.
33:11
Speaker 1: That is an order for law and that.
33:17
Speaker 8: Beyond.
33:19
Speaker 1: Prosecutors say.
33:19
Speaker 9: The twenty eight year old, whose real name is Annasorrikan,
33:23
Speaker 9: stole two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars from banks, hotels,
33:27
Speaker 9: and friends, all part of an elaborate scheme to keep
33:30
Speaker 9: up her illusion of grandeur. Prosecutors also alleged Sorrikan tried
33:34
Speaker 9: securing a twenty two million dollar loan to operate a
33:37
Speaker 9: private club, claims. Her lawyer denies.
33:40
Speaker 1: I do not.
33:41
Speaker 12: Believe she had the intent to ever commit a crime.
33:44
Speaker 12: Whether she oweys people money, that's a fact of life.
33:46
Speaker 12: That's that's the reality of doing business in New York.
33:49
Speaker 9: Now, facing charges of grand larceny and theft, she could
33:52
Speaker 9: spend up to fifteen years in prison if convicted. An
33:55
Speaker 9: official say, even if acquitted, she will be deported to Germany.
34:00
Speaker 9: Sorkin's attorney says she got in over her head but
34:02
Speaker 9: was just buying time until she could pay everyone back.
34:05
Speaker 1: You're hearing our buddy wit Johnson at GMA at ABC
34:09
Speaker 1: pay everybody back. I saw no signs of paying everybody
34:12
Speaker 1: back and calling this doing business. That's certainly putting perfume
34:17
Speaker 1: on the pig. Now you know there's a problem. Wendy Patrick,
34:21
Speaker 1: California prosecutor and author of Red Flags. When the defense
34:24
Speaker 1: to theft and fraud is fake it till you make it, okay,
34:30
Speaker 1: I would not say that that's a valid defense and
34:33
Speaker 1: a fraud case, you're admitting you're faking it.
34:37
Speaker 8: It's probably not a good theme for the defense one.
34:39
Speaker 8: I'm sure they're rethinking.
34:41
Speaker 1: Right about now. You don't want to.
34:43
Speaker 8: That's kind of playing right into the prosecutor's case. Now
34:46
Speaker 8: what they probably were trying to do, Interestingly, and trial
34:49
Speaker 8: and Nancy, you and I have both seen this is
34:51
Speaker 8: really kind of painting this vulnerability picture of the defendant
34:54
Speaker 8: to try to make somebody feel sorry for her, that
34:56
Speaker 8: she was caught up in this false lifestyle, felt she
34:59
Speaker 8: had to pretend she was somebody she wasn't.
35:01
Speaker 1: Who can't relate to that.
35:03
Speaker 8: There's a little bit of Anna and all of.
35:04
Speaker 1: Us, you know, some of the themes we've well wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
35:07
Speaker 1: I want to isolate what you just said. The defense
35:10
Speaker 1: argued at trial as if Anna Sorokan aka Anna Delphy
35:16
Speaker 1: was some type of a renegade and a rebel, someone
35:21
Speaker 1: who was, you know, making her own path in the
35:24
Speaker 1: world creatively. B As, don't tell me there's a little
35:28
Speaker 1: bit of Anna Sorokan in me, because that was their defense.
35:31
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of Anna and all of us.
35:33
Speaker 1: Oh uh uh uh no, because she is a fraud,
35:38
Speaker 1: a thief, and she ripped people off and they're never
35:41
Speaker 1: going to get repaid. Wendy, right, that's what I'm saying that.
35:44
Speaker 8: Well, that's baby why she was convicted, because these defenses
35:48
Speaker 8: are just not realistic to jurors, to hardworking jurors, and
35:52
Speaker 8: just cannot relate to the fact that we are anything
35:55
Speaker 8: like this picture of Anna. Nonetheless, we have seen this
35:59
Speaker 8: defense I'm in again and thankfully it is not successful.
36:02
Speaker 1: Take a listen to this.
36:04
Speaker 9: The courtroom drama played out late into the evening. At
36:07
Speaker 9: one point the jury appeared deadlocked, the defense asking for
36:10
Speaker 9: a mistrial, but then the verdict jurors agreeing with the
36:13
Speaker 9: prosecution that Anasauricin built her fairytale life on a foundation
36:18
Speaker 9: of theft and lives overnight, a New York City jury
36:22
Speaker 9: finding socialite Anasauricin, the so called Soho Grifter, guilty on
36:27
Speaker 9: eight counts, including grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, and theft
36:31
Speaker 9: of services. Prosecutors arguing the twenty eight year old stole
36:35
Speaker 9: a quarter of a million dollars from banks, hotels, and
36:38
Speaker 9: friends to fund a lavish lifestyle.
36:41
Speaker 12: The jurors obviously believed our point of view and followed
36:44
Speaker 12: our logic and acquitted her for the top charges. I'm
36:47
Speaker 12: sad and that she was convicted of some of the
36:48
Speaker 12: other charges.
36:49
Speaker 9: Prosecutors say the Russian born Sorkin, who called herself Anna Delvi,
36:54
Speaker 9: was pretending to be a high flying German heiress living
36:57
Speaker 9: a life of glamour among Manhattan's elite. Authority to say
37:01
Speaker 9: she even forged financial documents hoping to get a twenty
37:04
Speaker 9: two million dollar loan to open a private club in
37:07
Speaker 9: the Big Apple. While she was turned down, she did
37:10
Speaker 9: convince one bank to loan her one hundred thousand dollars,
37:13
Speaker 9: which she never paid back, or lawyer saying she meant
37:16
Speaker 9: to but had gotten in over her head and was
37:19
Speaker 9: just buying time.
37:20
Speaker 1: To bunnies abandoned in a public park trace back to
37:25
Speaker 1: Anna Delvey. Surprise, surprise, surprise, She swears she had nothing
37:30
Speaker 1: to do with it. Yet again another scandal. I would
37:34
Speaker 1: put money on it if I were a betting person,
37:36
Speaker 1: which I am not. That we have not heard the
37:38
Speaker 1: last from Anna Delvy aka con artist Anna Sorkin. Nancy
37:44
Speaker 1: Gray is signing off for now.
37:47
Speaker 5: Good night friend,