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.
Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs and TRM Labs, joins Cheddar News to discuss why Facebook is ditching its crypto project and what that means for the space.
Natalie Fertig, federal cannabis policy reporter at Politico Pro, joins Cheddar News to discuss a new YouGov poll that looks at how Americans feel about marijuana and politics.
A virtual gathering in the online space, Decentraland, of Elvis Presley impersonators is looking to grab the Guinness World Record for most Elvis impersonators in one place after the record-keeping org recently approved the use of avatars as stand-ins for people.
A powerful winter storm hit the Northeast over the weekend leaving 100,000 New Yorkers in the dark as well as snowfall up to 30.9 inches in parts of Massachusetts. The nor'easter hit with blizzard conditions of wind speed and poor visibility.
After classic rocker Neil Young demanded removal of his music from Spotify over vaccine misinformation coming from The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the platform made the decision to take down Young's songs and continue supporting Rogan with whom they have an exclusive contract. The move touched off a firestorm of controversy, leading to responses from both the streaming service and the podcasting host. Evan Nierman, CEO of Red Banyan Crisis PR, joined Cheddar to break down the latest on the fracas. "I think when [Spotify] initially said, we're not going to be commenting on that, that was a silly move because guess what? They did end up commenting about it, and nine times out of 10, when an organization says they're not going to be issuing a comment, they ultimately do," Nierman noted.
The 1999 cult classic "Fight Club" has been given a very different ending in China — and this time, the authorities win. Cheddar News speaks with Joan Solsman, senior media reporter at CNET who breaks down how China is using films for political messaging.
NFT art platform TRLab recently raised $4.2 million in funding. TRLab launched just last year but says its platform focused on NFT curation and distribution is growing quickly. The company hopes to bridge traditional and digital art worlds and help artists explore NFTs as an emerging medium. TRLab co-founder and chairwoman Xin Li-Cohen and co-founder and CEO Audrey Ou joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
