The Russian-born con artist scammed the New York City elite and other wannabe socialites into funding her lifestyle by posing as a wealthy foreign heiress
Anna Delvey is going from prison to the dance floor.
The con artist is part of the star-studded cast hitting the dance floor as part of the 33rd season of Dancing with the Stars, which airs Tuesday, September 17 on ABC.
The Russia native is paired up with Ezra Sosa, and will be competing against fellow stars such as Olympians Stephen Nedoroscik and Ilona Maher, Bachelor Nation alums Joey Graziadei and Jenn Tran, Julia Roberts‘ brother Eric Roberts, Danny Amendola, Brooks Nader and Tori Spelling, among others.
Her made up life of luxury, a scam she ran from around 2013 to 2017, infamously unraveled after the NYPD arrested her with the help of her former friend Rachel DeLoache Williams, who in 2018 wrote a lengthy, viral article for Vanity Fair titled She Paid for Everything: How a Fake Heiress Made My $62,000 Disappear, and she later gained more notoriety after the Jessica Pressler The Cut article How an Aspiring ‘It’ Girl Tricked New York’s Party People — and Its Banks, the foundation for the 2022 Netflix miniseries Inventing Anna, was published the same year.
Ahead of the DWTS premiere, revisit Anna’s scandalous story.
© GettyEarly life
Anna, 33, was born in Moscow during the last year of the Soviet Union, in the working class town of Domodedovo.
When she was 16, her family moved to Germany, and she later moved to London to attend the famed Central Saint Martin art school, however she soon after dropped out and returned to Germany.
© GettyScamming New York City elites
After a brief time living in Paris, Anna, who around this time started using the last name Delvey instead of her given name Sorokin, moved to New York City in 2013, and quickly began establishing the story that she was a wealthy foreign heiress.
She began expanding her network of what would ultimately be the people she conned into supporting her lifestyle by sneaking into society parties, failing to pay people back for luxuries such as trips abroad and expensive meals, and eventually she created fake bank statements and other financial documents that implied she had around $60 million in Swiss bank accounts, however she claimed they were tied up to a trust and she couldn’t access the move from the U.S.
© GettySimilar schemes went on for years, among the last of them conning her way into staying at the 11 Howard hotel without a credit card on file for months, racking up a $30,000 bill, which she ultimately “paid” by depositing $160,000 worth of fraudulent checks into a Citibank account and withdrawing money from it.
© GettyArrest and life after conviction
Even after the 11 Howard incident, Anna still managed to fraud several more hotels into free stays, and even chartered a business jet via Blade to travel to Omaha, Nebraska with the intention of meeting Warren Buffet at an annual Berkshire Hathaway, and cornered her friend Rachel into paying $62,000 for a trip to Marrakech.
On October 3, 2017, she was finally arrested during a sting operation planned by the NYPD with the help of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and Rachel herself.
© Andrew EcclesShe was ultimately found guilty of eight charges, including grand larceny in the second degree, attempted grand larceny and theft of services, and sentenced to four to 12 years in state prison; she was released on good behavior on February 11, 2021 after nearly four years, however six weeks later, in March, she was taken back into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying her visa, and was in their custody in upstate New York for a year.
Today, she is technically still under house arrest, hence her use of an ankle monitor on DWTS, and has been able to support herself — and pay back countless fees — thanks to society’s ongoing fascination with her, which she has also used to her advantage to host fashion events at her East Village apartment, sell art, and of course, star on Dancing with the Stars.