A fake heiress whose brazen scams inspired a popular Netflix series has been released from detention in the USA under strict watch.
Anna Sorokin scammed New York’s rich and elite and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from friends and banks while posing as the daughter of a rich German.
After serving four years’ jail she was released but then placed back behind bars for 17 months while fighting deportation.
CNN reports she was released from immigration detention on Friday (local time) under conditions including 24-hour house arrest with electronic monitoring and a social media ban.
The judge also posted $US10,000 bail.
“We are grateful that the Court agreed that her continued detention is unnecessary,” said Sorokin spokesman John Sandweg in a statement to CNN.
“She will remain under the supervision of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), but will be able to fight her deportation free from physical custody.”
Sorokin was convicted in 2019 for stealing more than $200,000 from banks and friends.
The young, beautiful “German heiress” posed as Anna Delvey, befriending the wealthy then systematically conning them and swindling banks and hotels.
At Sorokin’s sentencing, after being convicted on multiple counts of theft, Judge Diane Kiesel said she was “stunned by the depth of the defendant’s deception”.
Moments before she was sentenced, the fake heiress (who had told everybody she scammed she had a $60 million trust fund), briefly addressed the court, saying, “I apologise for the mistakes I made”.
Netflix turned her “mistakes” into nine-part series Inventing Anna, inspired by the New York Magazine article ‘How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People’ by tenacious journalist and author Jessica Pressler, who also served as a producer.
Pressler grappled with a key issue: Was Anna New York’s biggest con woman, or was she simply the portrait of the new American dream?
“Is she evil, or is society evil?” Pressler asked.
“Which is it? I don’t know. She was kind of allowed to become this because this is the way the world is. And it’s pretty fascinating,” she said.
Actor Julia Garner (who also plays Ruth Langmore in award-winning series Ozark) pulled off Delvey’s unique mish-mash accent for the series.
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