Why Does Anna Delvey Wear an Ankle Monitor? What Did Anna Delvey Do?

Anna Delvey is wearing an ankle monitor as part of her house arrest conditions. She was accused of defrauding banks and hotels and submitting forged financial records in a bid for a loan.

by Ritu

Updated Oct 17, 2024

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Why Does Anna Delvey Wear an Ankle Monitor? What Did Anna Delvey Do?

 Why Does Anna Delvey Wear an Ankle Monitor?  

Anna Delvey is wearing an ankle monitor as part of her house arrest conditions. She received permission from immigration officials to participate in Dancing with the Stars and mentioned that “I kind of got talked into doing this. I got the permission from ICE and then it was kind of too late to back out”. Once she had approval from ICE, it was too late to back out. Her spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, clarified that under her house arrest terms, Delvey could travel within a 70-mile radius of her home and “anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City”, covering all five boroughs of New York City.

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On the show, Delvey embraced her ankle monitor, incorporating it into her performances. In her debut dance, she matched the monitor’s colors to her dress, and in her final appearance, it was bedazzled with rhinestones. Despite these creative touches, Delvey was eliminated from Dancing with the Stars on September 24 after a brief run on the competition.

What Did Anna Delvey Do?

In her twenties, Delvey moved to New York City, where she ingratiated herself with the city’s elite socialites, investors, and art-world figures. Her fraudulent schemes included booking rooms in luxury hotels by falsely claiming she could pay later, then skipping out when payment was due. This pattern continued as she hopped from one high-end hotel to another.

Delvey also attempted to establish the Anna Delvey Foundation, a private members’ club and art foundation, seeking to raise millions from wealthy donors. She was accused of submitting forged financial records in a bid for a loan of $25 to $35 million, which was ultimately denied. However, she managed to secure a $100,000 loan from another bank using falsified documents.

In addition to defrauding banks and hotels, Delvey was accused of swindling over $35,000 from a private jet company by falsely claiming she had wired the funds for a flight, which never materialized.

Anna Delvey was also accused of deceiving her friends. In April 2018, Rachel DeLoache Williams, a former friend, wrote an essay for Vanity Fair detailing how Delvey had invited her on an extravagant vacation to Morocco, only to leave her stuck with a $62,000 bill. Despite the financial burden Williams claimed to face, Delvey was later acquitted of charges related to defrauding her.

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In October 2017, Delvey was arrested in New York and charged with several crimes, including grand larceny in the first and second degrees, as well as theft of services. These charges stemmed from her larger pattern of fraudulent behavior, which included scams targeting hotels, friends, and financial institutions.

Source: Today

Anna Delvey on Dancing With the Stars

Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, sported a spangly dress as she performed a quickstep with partner Ezra Sosa, but one of her accessories stole the show: a bedazzled ankle monitor strapped to her right leg.

The ankle monitor was an unavoidable reminder that Delvey, 33, is a convicted con artist who was released from prison in 2022 and remains under house arrest as she fights a deportation case.

Anna Delvey's rise to notoriety began when she was arrested in 2018 for masquerading as a wealthy German heiress and scamming hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks, hotels, and even her friends. Her story captured widespread attention and inspired the Netflix limited series Inventing Anna in 2022, starring Julia Garner.

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Why Did Anna Delvey Go to Jail?

In April 2019, Anna Sorokin (also known as Anna Delvey) was convicted in New York State Supreme Court on multiple charges, including four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny, and one count of attempted grand larceny. The charges stemmed from her elaborate schemes defrauding individuals, hotels, and banks by pretending to be a wealthy heiress. In May 2019, she was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison.

Sorokin was released on parole in February 2021 after serving around four years at Albion Correctional Facility in New York. However, shortly after her release, she was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for overstaying her visa. She remained in ICE custody for 17 months until October 2022, when she was released under house arrest. According to her lawyer, although her continued detention was deemed unnecessary, Sorokin is still facing deportation proceedings, and her movements are closely monitored. Sorokin continues to fight against her deportation while under house arrest.

Who is Anna Delvey?

Anna Sorokin, also known as Anna Delvey, is a Russian-born con artist who gained notoriety for posing as a wealthy heiress to infiltrate New York's elite social and art scenes between 2013 and 2017. Born on January 23, 1991, to working-class parents in the Soviet Union (now Russia), Sorokin moved to Germany with her family at the age of 16. In 2011, she left Germany to live briefly in London and Paris before settling in New York City in 2013, where she began interning at the French fashion magazine Purple.

While in New York, Sorokin devised a plan for an exclusive arts foundation and private members' club. She aimed to lease a large building to host exhibitions and pop-up shops from renowned artists she had met during her time in the fashion industry. To support this persona, Sorokin forged financial documents and wire transfers, claiming she had a multi-million euro trust fund. She used these fake documents to deceive banks, friends, hotels, and real estate companies into granting her loans, allowing her to live a lavish lifestyle in luxury hotels and restaurants.

Between 2013 and 2017, Sorokin defrauded financial institutions, hotels, and individuals through fraudulent checks and deceptive practices. Her elaborate scheme eventually unraveled, leading to her arrest and conviction on multiple charges of grand larceny and theft.

Full Name Anna Sorokin (known as Anna Delvey)
Date of Birth January 23, 1991
Place of Birth Domodedovo, Russia (formerly Soviet Union)
Nationality Russian (emigrated to Germany at age 16)
Occupation Con artist, fraudster, and former socialite
Aliases Anna Delvey
Crimes Grand larceny, theft of services, attempted grand larceny
Conviction Convicted in 2019 on charges of theft of services, grand larceny, and attempted grand larceny
Sentence 4 to 12 years in prison (released on parole in February 2021)
Cultural Impact Inspired the Netflix series Inventing Anna (2022)
Current Status Released under house arrest, awaiting deportation proceedings in the U.S.

Anna Delvey Early Life

Anna Sorokin was born in Domodedovo, a working-class town south of Moscow, during the Soviet era. Her father, Vadim, worked as a truck driver, while her mother ran a small convenience store. In 2007, when Sorokin was 16, her family moved to North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. There, her father transitioned to an executive role at a transport company before starting an HVAC business after the company went bankrupt in 2013. Sorokin's mother became a homemaker.

Sorokin attended a Catholic grammar school, Bischöfliche Liebfrauenschule in Eschweiler, where she struggled with the German language and was described as quiet by her classmates. As a teenager, she became deeply interested in fashion, obsessively following Vogue, fashion blogs, and image-sharing platforms like LiveJournal and Flickr.   

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