After being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 18 months, Anna Sorokin, a phony German heiress who swindled her way into the highest social circles of New York, was finally granted her freedom.
Sorokin will be freed from federal custody after she makes the $10,000 bond, according to her attorneys, who spoke to The Daily Beast. Sorokin will be held at a “specified home location for the length of her immigration procedures,” according to a judgement reviewed by the publication.
According to The Daily Beast, she is also prohibited from posting anything on social media, either directly or via a third party.
On accusations linked to a plan in which she purported to be a billionaire German heiress called Anna Delvey to trick banks and financial organizations into handing her money, Sorokin was given a sentence in May 2019 of four to twelve years in prison.
The reparation from Sorokin’s criminal case has been fully satisfied.
She was seized by ICE six weeks after being released from a New York prison in February 2021 after completing three and a half years of a four-year sentence.
In April 2021, a judge agreed with ICE’s claim that the German citizen is a “risk to society” and said that Sorokin would not be freed from ICE custody awaiting the outcome of her case. In a piece on prison life published in February by Insider, Sorokin wrote about being “trapped to a cell at yet another awful correctional facility.”
According to the decision obtained by The Daily Beast, immigration judge Charles Conroy determined last week that Sorokin wouldn’t pose a flight risk since she would be closely monitored after her release.
Conroy stated in the decision that it would be extremely difficult for her to evade discovery because of the terms of release set by the New York State Parole Board and immigration officials, as well as the fact that she is a well-known person. The Court determines that Sorokin’s risk of flight has been substantially minimized for all of these factors.
Sorokin, who has been dubbed the “SoHo Grifter” by several media sites, was the focus of the Netflix smash “Inventing Anna.”
In a statement to The Daily Beast, her attorney, Duncan Levin, expressed his team’s “great gratitude” for the court’s ruling and praised the judge for concluding that “Anna is not a risk to the community.”
Anna is excited to be released so she can concentrate on appealing her erroneous conviction, Levin said, according to the source, even if she still has a few obstacles to clear about her release terms.
John Sandweg, another attorney on Sorokin’s team, told Bloomberg that he believed the court made the appropriate decision given that Sorokin had not been charged with a crime since 2017.
According to Sandweg, who was quoted by the source, “and the evidence clearly established that whatever danger she does represent can be appropriately controlled by supervision, electronic monitoring, parole, and the supervision of ICE.”
Insider contacted Sorokin and her attorney Levin for comment, but neither provided one right away.