Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Fake Heiress Anna Delvey Claims Ankle Monitor Makes Her a Spectacle

Episode Date: September 7, 2024

Fake German heiress Anna Sorokin conned her way into Manhattan society. Using the alias Anna Delvey, she swindled banks, hotels, and friends out of more than $200,000. She forged checks to obtain money from banks and charmed others into covering extravagant meals and travel expenses. Sorokin was convicted on multiple counts of grand larceny and theft of services. After serving her sentence, the 31-year-old was released from prison and is now fighting deportation. Despite this, Sorokin continues to find success. She secured a deal with Netflix for the rights to her life story and began selling her artwork. Sorokin also commented that her home confinement and social media ban feel “more restrictive” than jail. She now says her ankle monitor has turned her into a spectacle. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Wendy Patrick – California Prosecutor, Author of “Why Bad Looks Good” and “Red Flags,” and Host of “Today with Dr. Wendy” on KCBQ in San Diego; X: @WendyPatrickPHD Dr. Donna Rockwell – Clinical Psychologist (Michigan/New York) Specializes in Celebrity Mental Health; Adjunct Faculty: Saybrook University: College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, DonnaRockwell.com; CEO/Founder: “Already Famous with Dr. Donna” Jim Ellis – Certified Fraud Examiner, Former FBI Agent (29 years), JKE Texas Private Investigator Rebecca Rosenberg –   Crime Reporter; Author: “At Any Cost;” Twitter: @ReRosenberg See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Does the name Anna Delvey ring a bell? The fake heiress, a.k.a. Anna Sorkin, who claimed to be a Russian heiress and worth millions of dollars. But what she did is rip off friends and business acquaintances to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, possibly up to a quarter million dollars. Well, it ain't over yet. In the last days, the fake heiress, Anna Delvey, says she doesn't want to be a, quote, spectacle. Really? Since when? She doesn't want to be a, quote, spectacle with her bedazzled ankle monitor. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

Anna Delvey, who we believe ripped off friends, acquaintances, and business connections up to the tune of around $250,000, convincing all these people she was a fake Russian heiress. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. Now claims wearing her ankle monitor is a, quote, pain. And she's lodging constant complaints about her ankle monitor. The choice is going back to jail, Anna Delvey, a Anna Sorkin. But the fake heiress tells the New York Post, it's not about style. She just doesn't want to be stared at. Really? Doesn't want to be stared at? That's all she wants is to be stared at. Delvey, again, whose real name is Anna Sorkin, has been forced to wear the GPS tracker since she was released from U.S. Immigration and Customs on a $10,000 bond back in October 2022. This is while

she fights being deported back to Germany. Every month, she has to check in with ICE in New York. And she's been a, quote, real pain in the ASS, end quote, constantly complaining the device is, quote, not fashionable. I can't believe I'm hearing this. Does it never end with this woman? Now, this is according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But Delvey, who was the inspiration for a Netflix special, nine episodes, as I recall, that I was forced to watch, my eyes were bleeding to prepare to cover the case, insisted she just doesn't want to be a spectacle that comes with wearing an ankle monitor. Let's refresh our recollection. Who is Anna Delvey? Why does she claim she's a fake heiress? Her real name is Anna Sorkin. Why doesn't she acknowledge she actually has real parents back home in Germany? And how

did she rip off New York society to the tune of about a quarter million dollars. Now complaining her ankle monitor is quote, not fashionable. What happened? Art aside, take a listen to inside edition. She claimed she was a wealthy heiress from Europe worth more than $60 million. But it was a lie. Anna Sorkin went to prison for two years for defrauding banks, hotels, and even her closest friends out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her trial drew international attention. This woman made national headlines posing as a wealthy woman. Now the woman known as the Soho Grifter is speaking to ABC's Deborah Roberts. This is the first time you've sat down for a television interview. Why are you talking with us?

Why not? I would like to show the world that I'm not this down-gritty person that they portrayed me to be. You ask her who she really is. Did she tell you? Anna Sorkin is a very complicated character. You might believe that Anna Sorkin is a very gifted, clever, wannabe businesswoman or a complete con artist. And there are many people in her wake who would tell you that she is the classic con artist. Why can't she be both? Why can't she be a great business person and the ultimate scammer?

I see her as both. Take a listen to our cut one from the Vanity Fair special, Scandalous. By 2016, Anna Delvey was a regular in the NYC social scene, frequenting many popular downtown restaurants, bars, and clubs. With an extravagant lifestyle and a seemingly endless supply of money, Delvey was an enigma that was made for the age of Instagram. Always at the right place with the right people, living her best life, but with no apparent cause for her fame. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now.

With me, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags, and hosted today with Dr. Wendy KCBQ. You can find her at wendypatrickphd.com. Dr. Donna Rockwell, special guest joining us, clinical psychologist in both Michigan and New York, specializing in celebrity mental health on faculty, Saybrook University. Jim Ellis with a special guest joining us, certified fraud examiner, former fed with the FBI. Don't mess with this guy. FBI agent, 29 years now, private investigator at JKE Texas, private investigator, jketexas.com. But first, I want to go to a woman I've been dying to talk to, Rebecca Rosenberg with Fox News Digital. She's a crime reporter and author of a fantastic book, At Any Cost.

Rebecca, who is this woman? Who is this woman? Well, her family came from Russia. They moved to Germany, and I believe her father was actually a truck driver. She does not come from a wealthy family, and she just invented this identity when she came to New York. Now, her coming to New the child of a truck driver. She ends up getting a job or an

internship that takes her to Paris. From there the position brings her to New York, I believe it was Montauk, and then she very simply overstayed her visa, which thousands of people do every year, but none do it in the style of Anna Sorokin.

Take a listen to Hour Cut 6, our friends at Inside Edition. Is she in a courtroom or at a red carpet event? Anna Sorokin is accused of posing as an heiress to live an extravagant lifestyle, but it's what she's wearing to trial that is making headlines. The 27-year-old defendant showed up wearing a form-fitting black dress with a plunging neckline and choker necklace. It's a look that could backfire, warns stylist Dawn Karen. Black dress, definitely a no-no.

It hyper-sexualized her. It makes her appear to be like a seductress. The choker kind of shows to me that she's trying to be overtly sexy. The more sexy she appears to be, it hurts her. Sorokin is so obsessed with her clothes, she refused to enter the courtroom because the outfit she was given to wear was not up to her standards. The angry judge told her, this is unacceptable and inappropriate. This is not a fashion show. Wow.

Well, you know what? It didn't work. She continued wearing designer clothes to every single court appearance, but this goes way back. Her desire for a lifestyle she could not afford started in her teens. Take a listen to our buddy Jesse Palmer at Daily Mail TV. Anna, who interned at a trendy French magazine, reportedly managed to scam extended stays in swanky Manhattan hotels, dinner at high-end restaurants, and flights on chartered jets. To finance her lavish lifestyle and keep the grift going, she allegedly built banks out of thousands in cash. And that's not all. The fake heiress reportedly fleeced her friend out of $62,000 for a world-class trip to Morocco.

But Anna went too far when she attempted to take out a loan for $22 million to finance a visual arts center she called the Anna Delvey Foundation. In all, Anna reportedly scammed a total of $275,000. I mean, maybe it's just me, but to you, Dr. Donna Rockwell, joining us, clinical psychologist, faculty at Saybrook University. Dr. Rockwell, I don't know very many people, except maybe Eloise, that lives in hotels. No, I guess we don't really know many people who live in hotels, but it's very posh, isn't it, to do that. She might be an Eloise poser, I guess. But, you know, that makes her look really unattainable and like she's got lots of money. So I think people in her situation will do anything they can to look like they're billionaires, not even millionaires. And Rebecca Rosenberg joining us from Fox News Digital.

Rebecca, she wasn't just staying down at the Motel 6. She was staying in very, very expensive and luxurious hotels. Yes, she was staying at 11 Howard Street for a very long time. It racked up a bill in the tens of thousands of dollars. And that's where she lived for a big chunk of the time she was in New York. You know, it was really interesting that she created this illusion that super rich and super educated people fell for, and I guess you'd call it New York Society until she went and basically invited herself

to be on a yacht in Ibiza. And then after everyone got off at the end of the vacation, she and her boyfriend turned around and get back on and stay for another week or 10 days. I mean, Jim Ellis, you're the certified fraud examiner, former FBI agent, 29 years for Pete's sake. When you commandeer a yacht with a captain and a staff and all the food and you're out at sea and the gas. That is a huge bill. A huge bill. And frankly, you know, she probably could have been stopped and exposed at that point.

If any of these people along the way who lost money, who got, you know, enticed by her story and it actually applied, you know, reason and common sense at a certain point, things wouldn't have gotten as far as they did. Yeah, you know, that's really interesting. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags. You can hear her on today with Dr. Wendy KCBQ. Dr. Wendy, I find it, Wendy Patrick, I find it really interesting that the owners or the people that had rented the yacht originally didn't go after her. Now, they are really, really wealthy Hamptonites. And I've got to tell you something, Wendy. Hamptons a couple of times for charity when I would be speaking to a group or raising money

somehow or other. That's a scene, Wendy. I couldn't wait till I packed up my little rental car and got out. I mean, I knew I was a dog upstairs. I did not fit in. That was not where I was supposed to be. And these rich people that got ripped off but didn't report it. What, they didn't want to look stupid or what? Yeah, no, that's right, Nancy. I'm like you. I'm more familiar with the Hampton Inn with the free breakfast. I've never heard that.

I'm totally stealing it. Go ahead. So this is the problem with the super rich. And it is a problem because financial responsibility should be everyone's responsibility. But they probably either didn't know or didn't care. Why do I say that? Because we've covered so many stories where you do have the ultra rich that are scammed, are defrauded by somebody like Anna.

But don't consider it in the balance to be worth their while to pursue it. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Welcome back. She claims she, quote, doesn't want to be a spectacle, but the fake German heiress Anna Delvey, who once claimed she was worth $60 million, is spotted completely glammed to the max with hair and makeup and designer clothes to take out her trash in her New York City apartment building. The former jailbird spotted in a chic outfit taking out the trash,

an all-black ensemble, including her bedazzled ankle monitor. She's been promoting her new podcast, The Anna Delvey Show. How have I missed that? She was spotted emerging from her East Village apartment with a garbage bag. Unlike most New Yorkers, including myself and my family, she opted for a fully glammed look to take out the trash. Her hair was beautifully blown out, heeled black sandals, black stockings, black mini dress, accented with an oversized black belt, a silver clutch, and several pieces of ornate gold jewelry. Hmm. All to take out the trash.

It's been revealed that Delvey was launching a podcast while under house arrest called The Anna Delvey Show. It will question, quote, traditional notions of right and wrong. And she will ponder, she says, what it means to be a rule breaker. Translation, a felon Who swiped $250,000 from friends. Yes, her. So now it's a rule breaker who's questioning traditional views of right and wrong. Now, I've heard about the trailer to her new show. And she states, you might recognize my name as a character in a Netflix series, but now you get to meet the real me. I think I met the real her in court as her friends and acquaintances talk about how she stole their money. Delvey claims her new show will, quote, question traditional notions of what is right and wrong.

And it's recorded from her $4,000 a month East Village apartment, $4,000 a month, where she will tell, quote, the craziest thing you've ever done for the sake of art. Okay. Can we get back to the ankle monitor that she now says is too much of a spectacle, that she bedazzled? But let me give you a refresher on Anna Delvey. What exactly happened? I'm not quite sure, Rebecca Rosenberg, what her motivation is other than just living the high life. But imagine the impact she could have made being the daughter of a truck driver. I mean, I'm the daughter of a railroad worker and a bank teller.

And I know my parents worked overtime to send me to college, send me to law school, and so much more. She actually has a brilliant mind. Yeah, but I don't think that if she had been honest about her origins, anybody, the people that she was trying to hang out with in New York, that they would have really paid attention to her. We know she was born in Russia, grew up in Germany. Her father worked at a transport company. It went insolvent. At 19, she left her parents and brother for Paris to pursue fashion. She has only ever spoken very vaguely of her parents, as she terms conservative.

But while she's in Paris, she takes on the name Anna Delvey, and she shoots photographs for a fashion art magazine named Purple. She only got 400 euros a month and she stayed financially dependent on her parents who would send her money, pay for her apartment. Then she had a breakup, headed to New York and she went for a trip to Montauk and then Fashion Week and that really did it. When she was at Fashion Week, there was no suggestion she would ever turn back. She went from boutique hotel to boutique hotel, always handing out crisp $100 tips and putting

off bills with promises of wire transfers that never happened. So Rebecca Rosenberg, I know we've got the one victim, Rachel Deloach Williams, because at the end, Rachel actually couldn't get paid restitution because the jury did not find Sorokin guilty of ripping her off. That was kind of that was one of the charges they did not convict on. Take a listen. Our cut five be our friends at time. Prosecutor Catherine McCaw says the defendant has not assent to her name as far as we can determine, also noting that Sorokin is Russian-born, not German, though she could be

deported to Germany no matter how the trial turns out, as she's reportedly overstayed her visa. Under the name Anna Delvey, she arrived in New York with a high-priced wardrobe and was known for handing out $100 cash tips, reportedly saying at different points that her father was a diplomat, an oil baron, or involved in the solar panel business, none of which are the case. People who knew her said she often asked others to use their credit cards to cover cab and plane fares and then failing to repay them. Rebecca Rosenberg, Netflix multi-episode creation, Inventing Anna. What is it? It's a show based on her life story.

It kind of glamorizes her criminal activity in New York, in which she was convicted, and she sold her life rights to Netflix for them to do the show. This woman cons. She cons big. Jim Ellis, joining us, former Fed with the FBI. Have you ever seen anything like it? obsessed with a lifestyle or getting money actually has alternate identities and scams and lies to even their closest friends, their lovers?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, in her heart, an historic is a con. And she she basically just cares about herself and she doesn't care what's left in her wake. And I've seen this through my career, both as an FBI agent and as a private investigator. People act the same way. I'm familiar with one con artist who dressed up. He's a Southern Baptist boy from Louisiana and he dressed up like a Hasidic Jew complete with clothing and makeup so he could go vouch to other people in the Jewish community for himself. I mean,

the people will go to no ends to satisfy their greed, to satisfy their want for fame and power. How do you untangle a case like this? Well, I mean, obviously, from a law enforcement perspective, you don't even know about it until somebody reports it. You know, I'm thinking about her personality. She goes to trial. She goes to trial. I want you to hear what the attorney said in court.

Take a listen to our cut 7A, our friends at GMA. She had to fake it until she could make it. Those words from the defendant's own attorney who claims she never intended to commit a crime. But prosecutors call her a fraud and a liar who would do almost anything to prolong her life of luxury. This morning, the fate of an alleged scam artist is now in the hands of a jury. Both sides wrapping up arguments for a case that's drawn international outrage. The style-savvy defendant even turning heads in court wearing an animal print dress. She called herself Anna Delvey, a fashionable globetrotter who prosecutors

say was pretending to be a high-flying German heiress living a fairytale life of glitz and glam among Manhattan's elite. Wow. Okay. Take a listen to her and a Sorokin in her own words. I will cut nine from the BBC. Did you get a thrill from it? I mean, were you satisfied when you got away with something, when you achieved something, when you slipped under the radar and didn't have to pay? Was it thrilling? Absolutely not, because in my head, I never thought that I was cheating or getting away with anything. In my head, like any money that would borrow from them, they would be getting back. I felt like they portrayed me as like someone who is very manipulative, which I don't think I am. And I was like never really like too nice of a person.

I was never like really trying to talk my way into anything. I kind of just told people what I wanted and like really trying to talk my way into anything. I kind of just told people what I wanted and like they either gave it to me or not. And I just moved on. She taught them into what she wanted through lies. I mean, Donna Rockwell, we really need to shrink. How can she take hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury hotels, clothing that she got her friends to pay for, racking up credit cards she knew she'd never pay back, hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit cards, all based on lies. I mean, she had to know that was wrong. She wasn't just faking it, fake it till you make it.

She was outright lying for goods and services. Yes, she was outright lying. That's how we see it. It's interesting, you know, because a person who has early life narcissistic wounds. Okay, see, I don't know what that means. What? It means that someone is only really thinking about themselves. But you said a narcissistic wound.

What's a narcissistic wound? I know who a narcissist is, but what's a narcissistic wound? When we're babies, if our mother or primary caretaker doesn't look at us and say, who's a pretty baby? Who's a pretty baby? We don't know that we exist. So without early life mirroring, meaning the parent or the caregiver is looking at you, you know you're existing, you're smiling back,

there becomes a deficit that develops in a person, and that is who becomes a narcissist or a self-serving person in adulthood, and we probably know many of them in our own lives. However, in the context of same, there's something called acquired situational narcissism, which means that the situations that we come into after we're a baby, in other words, like Anna, when she was in her 19 and in her 20s, is enough to turn us into that kind of a person, meaning all for me and none for you. And how does she get away with that? She gets away with it because she's in denial, which is a psychological coping

mechanism. So the only way that she can do these things is to not have a conscience, to not think about it. So she has a sense of acquired situational narcissism because of her situation, and then wanted more of it and more of it and more of it. And what people don't really understand about fame is that it is as addictive as heroin. The second we get a taste of the spotlight, most of us, we want more and more and more. And that's what happened with Anna. She was in denial. She was projecting anything that she was thinking about herself onto other people. She asked for what she wanted.

We just heard on the tape she got it or she didn't get it, and she moved on. She did not have a conscience to think about, is this the right thing? Am I hurting anybody? That's not how these people think. And it became more and more and more because fame is addictive. Now, even though we've spotted Anna Delvey totally glammed up in sheer black stockings and a black mini dress to take out her trash, hair blown out, full hair and makeup, she abandoned her super glam look for a drab dress down. Why? Because she was meeting with her parole officer. Yes, she looked very pitiful on her way to meet her parole officer. But quick change,

she looks like a runway model to take out the trash and get photographed. My question is, why is she out walking free? She hasn't paid her victims back with her bedazzled ankle monitor. And you know, Wendy Patrick, she may have justified it in her own mind. I'm certainly not defending her because this is irrational. This is not reasoning. It's irrational. She was taking from rich people in the Hamptons. I'm talking like $30 million homes with, you know, guest houses that with guest houses that are bigger than our homes or apartments. She was taking from someone that could afford it. Like she overstayed on the yacht for a week because somebody else much richer than her was paying for it. So I wonder in her mind,

did she justify it that way? Only had it been a very short amount of time, something over a weekend or maybe even a week. But the amount of time, the duration that this went on, there was no conceivable way in her mind that she possibly could have thought she would pay any of it back. You know, she may have faked it until she made it when she first got to New York. But when stealing money from others over that period of time, faking it is fraud. Hopefully that was a soundbite somebody used at her trial, because there's no other way circumstantially you can justify that many victims over that long a period of time. And even now, it's still all about her. Take a listen to our friend Emily Maitlis at the BBC Cut 10. Why do you think so many people believed you then? What was it in your personality that could convince people? I don't know. I think like maybe believed I was smart

and I was working on something that was that could have like a great potential and I would be successful. I don't know. I don't feel like it has much to do with my personality. I guess I'd like I really believed in myself and what I was doing. Um, I don't know. It's just, it's, it's hard to explain. I guess like people just see like I'm talented and I'm focused and I work hard and, um, I could make them a lot of money. Rebecca Rosenberg worked hard at what? Every time I see a photo or a post of her, she's on a luxury trip or she's shopping. Worked at what? Well, I think a lot of her victims wanted to believe in her success because it meant their success, too.

You know, she's saying, OK, I'm going to build this Anna Delvey Foundation in Manhattan for $22 million. And, you know, one of the people she duped was the architect. Well, for him, you know, he wanted to be involved in that big project. So he wanted to sort of believe the lie because it would ultimately help him. So I think a lot of it was people wanting to kind of believe it was true because there was an advantage to them. These are just some of the things, and I want to go to you on, Jim Ellis, that we have uncovered. Falsifying financial documents from international banks, wait for it, totaling approximately 60 million euros, securing a loan of 100 grand after lying to bank reps from CTI, depositing countless bad checks into other banks.

I guess you know how you float a check, you deposit a check, you withdraw the funds, and then you try to shore it up from another bad account so that won't fall through. And then another, you basically play rope-a-dope on banks. That was totaling nearly $80,000. That doesn't include the money she conned off her friends, never paying them back. Theft of services, almost a half a million dollars. I mean, that's a lot of money, Jim. Oh, absolutely, it's a lot of money.

And you mentioned earlier you weren't sure how she ever worked hard she worked hard uh and preparing all these fraudulent documents and passing all those bogus checks and coming up with stories that were plausible but yet not too specific the life of a con is hard work. And they do it for the power. They do it for the money. They do it for the fame. I think she saw the banks as her potential savior.

You know, you think of like Elizabeth Holmes with Theranos. You know, was she a genius or was she a scam artist? If Sorkin was able to produce all these phony documents and convince a bank to lend her $22 million. So wait, explain that to us mere mortals. What do you mean produce phony documents and convince big banks to loan her lots of money? Sure. She apparently was really adept in Adobe Photoshop. I mean, she was taking documents and altering them to convince the bankers that she had Swiss bank accounts, that she had trust documents,

that she had lawyers and CPAs or accountants over in Europe. And it was going, at least to a certain extent, probably until it hit the underwriting department, the people in the back of the office who make sure everything, all the boxes are checked. It was painting a picture of her, of exactly who she was claiming to be. And I think she possibly could have felt that if she was claiming to be. And I think she possibly could have felt that if she was able to land that loan,

in her mind, she probably was going to pay all those people back that she had scammed previously. In her mind. In her mind. And she may have. We don't know. She's kicking the can down the road. She's getting her next victim.

And when that, when it comes time to pay them back, she'll worry about that later. It's never ending. I mean, it's what brings down every Ponzi scheme in the end. And this wasn't a large scale Ponzi scheme, but you know, some of that money she scammed from, from, through those phony checks that she deposited with Citibank, the loan she got from Citinational Bank, she used to pay some of her debts to the hotels and other businesses so that she could stay afloat and maintain that illusion. Well, Jim Ellis, I guess what you're saying is she would pay back the hotels to the extent that she could get them to allow her to stay there for even longer. I mean, what does it mean to kind of check?

Well, to kind of check, and it's a lot harder nowadays than it used to be because the float, which is the time that a check is deposited into one bank and actually clears in the originating bank, it's so much shorter. But you basically take a check and you present it to a bank that you know is worthless, or it may appear it has funds, but by the time that check is presented for payment to the originating bank, there aren't any phones. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In addition to whining about her ankle monitor being unfashionable and a, quote, spectacle, Delvey also has filed a bid to end her, quote, draconian house arrest, claiming she has suffered, quote, severe emotional distress and stress in her $4,250 a month New York apartment. Who is she?

Take a listen to our friends at GMA. Good morning, America. A New York City jury finding socialite Anna Sorokin, the so-called Soho grifter, guilty on eight counts, including grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and theft of services. The jurors obviously believed our point of view and followed our logic and acquitted her of the top charges. I'm saddened that she was convicted of some of the other charges. Sorokin was acquitted of two charges, including the most serious, attempting to steal more than $1 million from Citi National Bank. To Rebecca Rosenberg, joining us from Fox News Digital, explain the split verdict.

What was she convicted on and on? What was she acquitted? She was acquitted on trying to score this massive $20 million loan, which was one of the top charges. That was the attempted grand larceny. And she was acquitted of stealing, the number kind of varies, but around $70,000 from Rachel Deloach. That was the trip that she invited her best friend at the time, Rachel Deloach, on to Morocco, where they stayed in the 7,000-a-night Riyadh outside of Marrakesh. And at the end of the trip, she stuck her with the bill.

She persuaded her to put the entire trip on her credit card and she would pay her back. So those were the two main counts she was acquitted on. And then she was convicted in the chartered plane incident. Wait, wait, let me let that soak in, Rebecca Rosenberg. The chartered plane incident. What was that? So it was called Blade is the company, and she persuaded them to fly her without paying up front

to a Berkshire Hathaway conference in Omaha and basically was like, I'll pay you later. And they thought she'd pay them later and she didn't. And that was about $35,000. It was a chartered flight. A chartered flight incident. Okay, so she ends up going to not just jail, but to Rikers. Is anybody on the panel familiar with Rikers?

Okay. Yes, just by reputation. Yeah. You don't want to go there unless you have to. Take a listen to Anna Sorokin speaking to our friend Deborah Roberts at ABC. Sorokin says she's paid for her mistakes. Her time behind bars, including 19 months in New York's infamous Rikers Island jail, some of it in solitary confinement.

You're being held in Rikers, one of the most frightening jails in the country. What was that like for you? Were you terrified? In a way that was therapeutic. I mean, it's therapeutic. I, for example, use the time like to read a lot that was therapeutic. I mean, it's a... Therapeutic? I, for example, use the time to read a lot and to write. I've heard that you've said that prison is kind of a waste of time. Yeah.

Taking a person, stripping them of everything, putting them somewhere where they have pretty much very few opportunities to rehabilitate. So how is this supposed to help someone who already had to resort to life of crime? And that tells me right there that Anna Delvey, aka Anna Sorokin, learned nothing from her time behind bars, Wendy Patrick, nothing. It also tells us that she is admitting that she resorted to a life of crime, which contradicts everything she said before the trial and even in some interviews after the trial, that she knew because she wasn't working, as you pointed out several times, there was no way she was going to be able to repay these loans.

But sitting through the trial, sitting in Rikers Island Prison, therapeutic, you have to wonder whether she received special treatment. We don't know one way or the other, but it is very interesting that her attitude apparently hasn't changed. I'm sure she got special treatment because she had managed to convince everyone that she was a celebrity that deserves special treatment. You know, Rebecca Rosenberg, I'm not sure I understand the not guilty on the 60 grand she ripped off from Rachel Deloach Williams. What was the jury's thinking? Well, I spoke to a couple of jurors after the verdict, and they kind of felt that in the end, Rachel came out ahead, even though it was a sum of money that was greater than what she earned

as a salary. But eventually, you know, she she did. She did end up with I think her book advance was three hundred thousand dollars. I don't know what she got paid from HBO. So I think that they just didn't feel that bad for her. But why? Because why did they not feel bad for Rachel Williams? Because she was also using Anna Soroka, you could say. Like she, you know, it's sort of weird. Like she's going out

with Anna all the time and Anna's always paying for absolutely everything. You know, I personally wouldn't feel that comfortable if I was going out with somebody, even if they were much wealthier than me, with them footing the bill every time. So I think that was kind of their reasoning. Take a listen to what happens immediately when she walks out from behind bars. Our cut 14 inside edition. You walked out of prison a free woman. Hi, Anna. What was the first thing you did? They brought me my phone, so I got on social media. She came out of prison and immediately sat down to do this interview with us and immediately went on social media and immediately started to resume kind of a glamorous life. So the first thing she does is hop on social media.

What does that tell you, Dr. Rockwell? The same thing it tells you, Dr. Grace, that she didn't feel bad about one thing through this entire event, that there's a lack of conscience and that she was loving the spotlight and she couldn't wait to get back into it. As I say, it's an addiction. It makes the hormones flash in your mind. You have endorphins. Your brain comes alive with your own image, and you love it. You salivate over it, and that's what happened to Anna Sorokin. Jim Ellis, certified fraud examiner, now with his own firm, JKETexas.com. Jim, shopaholics or people that get a thrill out of buying things, I think Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey,

got a thrill of some sort of this fake life she was leading. Do you think someone like her can turn over a new leaf? Or is this just who she is? Well, that's a good question. I mean, I always hope. I didn't say what you hope jim ellis you've investigated so many con guys what do you think they don't stop i mean as you pointed out she immediately got back on social media and and and i agree with dr rockwell that it was for for the endorphin rush of getting that hit, of getting that fame and putting out that projection. But I think it's also a certain aspect of that is rebuilding her stature so that she can now see where she can get her next meal ticket from. But who in their right mind would want to work with somebody that just got out of prison

for defrauding hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people she was closest to? Wow. Okay, this woman apparently has no shame. Instead of trying to pay back her victims, she's whining about her bedazzled ankle monitor. Well, with this woman, it never ends. Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.