Russian woman posing as a millionaire in New York, found guilty of fraud

The trial of 28-year-old Anna Sorokina completed in New York, known in recent years under the name of Delvi and posing as a German heiress with a fortune of 60 million euros. She is found guilty on most points, writes Air force.

Delvi accused of stealing from financial institutions, luxury hotels and their friends, as well as stealing services. Manhattan prosecutors officially charged her with embezzling 275 thousand dollars. According to prosecutors, Delvi committed these crimes during the 10 months, that is, from November 2016 to August 2017.

The defendant was born in the Russian 1991 year, but in the 2007 year, her parents took her and her younger brother to Germany. Four years later, Anna graduated from high school in the provincial town of Eschweiler, 60 km from Cologne. Classmates recall that German was given to her with difficulty. Delvi and now speaks it does not matter, but in English speaks with an uncertain European accent, which you often hear in the light of Manhattan.

She arrived in New York in 2016 year and smoothly fit into a glamorous party, where she successfully pretended to be the daughter of a German oil magnate, a diplomat or just a rich man. In fact, her father, according to the media, initially worked in Germany as a truck driver, and then started a small heating and cooling equipment maintenance company.

Delvey calmly parted with crisp “Benjamins,” as hundred-dollar bills on which Benjamin Franklin are called in the United States, and paid tips with them to Uber drivers, maids and doormen who fought for the right to carry her suitcases to her room. ForumDaily previously wrote about luxurious lifestyle, which is the beauty of Anna Sorokina in New York.

She settled in Soho at the new boutique hotel 11 Howard and lived there for several months, dressed in expensive shops, dined in trendy restaurants, flew to Tennessee on a chartered plane and two years ago took her friends to Morocco, where she rented a villa for 7 thousands of dollars in day.

When Marrakech refused to accept her debit card, Delvi persuaded her companion, photo editor of Vanity Fair magazine Rachel Williams, to pay for the trip, which cost 62 thousands of dollars. This amount exceeded the annual salary of Williams, who later described in Vanity Fair his attempts to get the money spent. Ultimately, Delvi returned just 5 thousands to her.

Delvi attended exclusive events and knew a lot of their regulars. Even fleeting acquaintances with influential people could be very useful. For example, a startup Blade, through which the rich and famous chartered charter flights, allowed Delvi to fly to Omaha, Nebraska, without prepayment.

As the chief accountant of Blade Kathleen McCormick showed at the trial, the company took such a risk because its head, Rob Wiesentol, crossed paths with Delvi in ​​the light and vouched for her. She flew to Omaha for the annual meeting of shareholders of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, headed by the legendary investor Warren Buffett.

A round-trip flight cost 35 390 dollars. McCormick has shown that the company sometimes allows customers to fly into debt, and in the past they all paid off with it neatly. When Delvi didn’t do this a month later, McCormick corresponded with her.

At first she replied that the money had already been sent. Then excuses followed, for example, that Google closed access to its account.

Delvi returned from Omaha to New York City 9 May 2017. By August, the company's patience ran out, and she told the prosecutor's office.

Protection position

Attorney Delvi Todd Spodek essentially blamed the injured company and reproached her for not demanding money in advance.

Anna Sorokina. Photo: video frame
YouTube / CBS New York

“Have you ever been in a restaurant where you were given full service and then said you would pay later,” he said. - Of course not, that’s not how it’s done. I don’t understand how Blade did business if they could say, “Okay, 35 thousand? It's not a problem. Pay us sometime later."

Blade repeatedly tried to get money from his client, but Spodek argued to the jury that the company essentially "gave her a free flight," because Delvi seemed to be a wealthy and influential social lion.

“They thought she was a German heiress,” Spodek said. “They thought she was a trendsetter who would praise them on Instagram.” So they gave her a plane. ”

Since November 2016, Delvi has been working on realizing her crystal dream - creating a private art club, which was to be called ADF (“Anna Delvi Foundation”) and located in a six-story historic building at the corner of Park Avenue and 22 st. The club was supposed to include a bar, restaurant and art gallery.

The path to the dream

To finance the project, Delvi tried to borrow 22 million dollars from banks. Since the young woman, who, strictly speaking, did not have a penny to herself, would not have been given so much in life, according to prosecutors, she resorted to lying and forged documents, having previously studied the falsification method on the Internet. She still did not give anything, and the ambitious art project remained unfulfilled.

As stated in a press release from the prosecutor's office, released after Delvi's arrest in October 2017, on November 21, 2016, she attempted to borrow the required 22 million dollars from City National Bank, located in the center of Manhattan.

She told the German heiress and presented to the bank employee forged documents of other banks certifying that 60 million euros were in total in her accounts abroad.

This was not enough, and a few weeks later the bank refused. Delvi, as if nothing had happened, presented the same documents to Dennis Onabanjo, representative of the company Fortress Investment Group, who was responsible for checking the creditworthiness of the borrowers.

She was told that they would consider her application on the condition that Delvi would first deposit thousands of dollars in 100 for attorneys' fees and checks.

12 January 2017, a woman persuaded the City National Bank to give her a loan for this amount. For this, she convinced a bank employee to allow her to overdraft her account. In February, Fortress spent 45 thousands of this amount on attempts to check Delvi's creditworthiness, after which the woman canceled her application, but did not return the remaining 55 thousands to the City National Bank.

She spent the money on classes with a personal trainer, covering 30-thousandth debt to the 11 Howard hotel and shopping in expensive stores, whose names were emphasized by prosecutors in court, hoping to arouse class jury against the defendant.

According to the prosecution, between 7 and 11 in April 2017, Delvi placed checks for 160 thousand dollars into Citibank’s account. Before the bank discovered that they were uncovered, she took down 70 thousands.

Theoretically, Delvi threatened to 15 years in prison, followed by deportation to Germany. As usual, in December, the prosecutor's office offered her an option that, at first glance, seemed very attractive.

In the state of New York there is a law that gives convicted foreigners the right to serve the entire half-term, followed by deportation to their homeland. The prosecutor's office offered Delvi from three to nine years in prison. There are no terms of this type in the US federal system, but they exist at the state level.

Since Delvi had already served more than a year in a city prison on Rikers Island, the young woman could have left for Germany sometime at the beginning of 2019.

“Where has everyone gone?”

18 last December, Delvi entered Judge Dien Kisel’s room in Puma sneakers, black-rimmed large glasses and beige prison uniform, refused to plead guilty and rejected the deal proposed by the prosecutor’s office.

“She tuned in to the process,” Spodek shrugged. Kisel set the trial for February 25. These dates are optional in the United States, and in fact the trial in the Delvey case began on March 27.

At first it was impossible to get into the trial, but by mid-April the ranks of reporters and onlookers had thinned so much that Delvi once loudly asked her lawyer: “Where has everyone gone?!”

It turned out that she had hired, for the duration of the process, the well-known stylist Anastasia Walker, who helped her choose the outfits bought by Spodek. Delvi, for example, appeared at the first court session in the open dress of the Italian firm Miu Miu. A couple of times the trial began late due to the tantrums she rolled over about her wardrobe.

The press entertained the public with a description of the dresses of the defendant, but the jury was, as always, forbidden to read and watch reports about the process.

American processes, even the loudest, sometimes unbearably boring, and the process of Delvi was no exception. The juror, numbered 9, took the habit of falling asleep during the sessions and, worse, snoring loudly, so the judge had to replace him.

Last week, drama returned to the audience thanks to the tearful testimony of photo editor Rachel Williams, who paid for a trip to Marrakesh, to which the defendant invited her supposedly free of charge.

At cross-examination, Spodeck's lawyer made Williams tell that it seemed that the voyage to Morocco would ultimately bring her much more money than she spent on him.

The fee for her article in Vanity Fair was only $1300, but the cable channel HBO is planning a film adaptation of it - and here Williams can earn more than 335 thousand. Another 300 thousand was an advance for her book on the same topic, which will be published by Simon & Schuster.

Worldly glory

Netflix has acquired the rights to film an extensive article on the New York odyssey Delvi, written by Jessica Pressler and published in the journal New York. Delvi has sold this company the rights to her life story. The amount of the transaction is not disclosed. In any case, the Delvi fee is likely to go to cover losses incurred by victims, among which are two hotels and a restaurant from which she left without paying.

Spodek argued to the jury that Delvi did not set a goal to deceive anyone; she simply owed her creditors, planned to earn and eventually pay them off. Therefore, it should be a civil case, not a criminal one.

If she had privyla hour, it was a harmless lie to the rescue, said the defender.

“In fact,” prosecutor Catherine McCaw retorted in her closing speech, “the defendant lied to one victim after another over and over again, she presented one fake document after another, one fictitious ID after another! .. This was not a white lie ... The defendant acted with criminal intentions!”

The jury found Delvi guilty of most of the ten points of charge, but justified on the clause trying to fraudulently borrow millions of dollars and on the theft of 62 thousands from Williams. Delvi's verdict will be imposed on 9 May.

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