Anna Sorokin, the convicted swindler who claimed to be a German heiress to finance a posh lifestyle in New York, is making a new bid to fight deportation, a lawyer said Tuesday.
Sorokin, whose scheme inspired the recent Netflix series “Inventing Anna,” was taken into U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement custody nearly a year ago. She remained jailed in New York's Hudson Valley on Tuesday, attorney Manny Arora said.
He said she filed papers Monday seeking to hold off being ejected from the country.
ICE on Tuesday said only that she remains in the agency's custody.
Sorokin, who was convicted in 2019 and spent more than three years behind bars, has since been challenging deportation. An appellate immigration judge last month declined to stop the 31-year-old German citizen from being removed.
Using the name Anna Delvey, Sorokin maneuvered her way into elite New York social circles by passing herself off as a socialite with a $67 million (61 million euros) fortune overseas, according to prosecutors. She falsely claimed to be the daughter of a diplomat or an oil baron.
Prosecutors said Sorokin falsified records and lied to get banks to lend, luxury hotels to let her stay and well-heeled Manhattanites to cover plane tickets and other expenses for her, stealing $275,000 in all.
Her trial lawyer cast her as an ambitious entrepreneur who got in over her head financially and was simply buying time to pay her debts.
A California appeals court on Wednesday will consider reviving the dismissed lawsuits of two men who allege Michael Jackson sexually abused them as children for years, a move the court appears likely to make after a tentative decision that would order the cases back to a lower court for trial.
An intense police search of the Long Island home of Rex Heuermann is now complete, authorities said Tuesday as they ended a 12-day hunt for evidence that involved ripping up the yard and the discovery of a basement vault containing hundreds of weapons kept by the man accused of killing at least three women more than a decade ago.
A towering construction crane caught fire high above the west side of Manhattan on Wednesday morning, then lost its long arm, which smashed against a nearby building, dangled and then plummeted to the street as people ran for their lives on the sidewalk below.