Anna Delvey first made headlines when she was arrested for scamming the best and brightest of New York’s high society back in 2017.
Last year, Delvey’s name — or at least the fake name she adopted for her life as a fraudster — re-entered the public consciousness thanks to the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Inventing Anna, which offered a dramatized look at her crimes.
If you watched the series, you know that Delvey was nabbed in a sting operation and subsequently convicted on charges of grand larceny and theft of services.
Now, after several years behind bars and a whole lot of legal wrangling Anna is a free woman — sort of.
Delvey — whose real name is Anna Sorokin — actually finished her sentence back in February of 2021, but she was taken into custody by ICE for having overstayed her visa.
(Anna was born in Soviet Russia but later became a German citizen.)
She’s spent the past year and a half in a detention center, but a judge determined this week that Delvey is not a flight risk, in part because she’s too famous to go into hiding.
Yes, in the end, the notoriety that Anna gained for her crimes actually helped her.
As of Wednesday, Anna was still behind bars, as she arranged to pay her bond and figure out a living arrangement that will enable her to remain in the US on a temporary basis.
Once she finds a place to stay, Anna will be under 24-hour house arrest, which will be enforced with electronic monitoring.
She also be prohibited from using social media, which must sting, as Anna would surely love to celebrate her release with her 1 million Instagram followers.
“After 17 months of immigration detention, an immigration judge recognized that immigration detention was no longer necessary for Anna and ordered her release subject to various conditions of supervision,” Anna’s lawyer, John Sandweg, said in a statement issued to Entertainment Tonight.
“This ruling does not mean that Anna will get a free pass. She will continue to face deportation proceedings and her release will be closely monitored by ICE and the State of New York,” Sandweg continued.
“Nevertheless, as the court found, Ana does not pose such a risk that continued detention was necessary.”
Delvey claimed to be the heiress of a multi-million dollar fortune, and her act must’ve been mighty convincing, as she managed to ingratiate herself with the upper echelon of New York City’s high society.
Between defrauding investors in the Anna Delvey Foundation social club that never materialized and simply refusing to pay for hotel rooms, private jet rentals and other services, Anna stole more than $200,000 from those whose trust she gained.
Inventing Anna — in which Delvey was portrayed by acclaimed actress Julia Garner — became one of the most popular Netflix titles of 2021.
As further proof that sometimes crime does pay, Anna received $300,000 to work as a consultant on the series.
Of course, Anna’s legal battles are far from over, as she’s likely to face multiple lawsuits, and must now fight for her right to remain in the US.
But for now, at least, Delvey is a free woman for the first time in a very long time.