Con artist Anna Sorokin appears at New York fashion show with bejewelled ankle tag

Anna Sorokin, a Russian con artist who posed as a German heiress while scamming New York’s elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, has appeared at a fashion show with a bejewelled ankle tag. 

Sorokin, 33, falsely built a reputation as a wealthy German heiress named Anna Delvey over a number of years while conning hotels, banks and friends into bankrolling her lavish lifestyle.

She was arrested in 2017 and found guilty of eight charges including grand larceny in April 2019 and sentenced for four to 12 years.

Sorokin, whose family moved from Russia to Germany in 2007, has worn the ankle tag since October 2022 when she started her house arrest amid a deportation case.

Attending the Untitled&Co runway show during New York Fashion Week on Wednesday, Sorokin posed for photographs with the black bejewelled tag on her right leg.

She also wore a miniskirt and a tiara at the event.

On Wednesday, it was announced she would be a contestant in the next season of Dancing With The Stars, which premiers on 17 September on ABC and Disney+.

The show appears to be leaning into the ankle bracelet, with an image released of Sorokin in a glittering dress clearly showing the tag on her leg.

While Sorokin was released from prison in February 2021, immigration authorities claim she overstayed her visa and must be returned to her native Germany.

She was in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for more than a year before a judge cleared the way for her to switch to home confinement in October 2022 while she fights the deportation case.

Sorokin’s scheme to pose as a wealthy German heiress became the focus of the 2022 Netflix hit show Inventing Anna, starring Julia Garner as the con artist.

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Sorokin’s spokesperson Juda Engelmayer confirmed on Tuesday that she could travel within 70 miles (112km) of her home base and anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City under previous house arrest conditions, but could not comment on any changes to those rules.

While under house arrest, Sorokin had to abide by the immigration judge’s condition that she does not use social media, but she started a podcast The Anna Delvey Show that featured guests such as comedian Whitney Cummings and technology journalist Taylor Lorenz who travelled to her apartment in New York to record.

“So many people became famous for bad things and were able to kind of segue it into something different,” she said in a June 2023 interview with the Associated Press.