Fake Heiress Gets Out of Prison

Anna Sorokin, convicted in 2019 of scamming banks, hotels, and friends by pretending to be a wealthy heiress, is a free woman again. The German con artist was released from an upstate New York prison Thursday after having her sentence shortened for good behavior, Insider reports. In May 2019, she was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for crimes including grand larceny and was given credit for time served since her October 2017 arrest. Prosecutors said Sorokin, using the name Anna Delvey, lived a luxury lifestyle in New York City and pretended she had a $60 million trust fund in Europe though she had "not a cent to her name, as far as we can determine," the BBC reports.

Sorokin apologized for her crimes at a parole hearing in October, reports the New York Post. "I completely understand that a lot of people suffered when I thought I was not doing anything wrong," she said. She could now face deportation back to Germany, though lawyers say she plans to appeal her conviction despite her release. Her story is being told in an upcoming Netflix series starring Julia Garner as Sorokin. Insider reports that Sorokin used the $320,000 she received from Netflix to pay restitution to her victims. (More fraud stories.)