Ep 6. Fake Heiress

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Prep for a busy week with Whole Foods Market. Start your day with fully cooked breakfast sausages from Amy Liu, 365 brand frozen waffles with no bleached flours, and of course, Whole Foods Market eggs, which are all cage-free or better. In the evening, bring home a build-your-own family meal that feeds four for just $35. Choose one entree and two sides. Shop smarter, not harder, at Whole Foods Market. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Anna Delvey lived a life of trust fund luxury in New York City. But her fortune was built on a lie. One which ended up costing friends, hotels, lawyers and bankers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Narcissistic, sociopathic, Machiavellian. Well, she's a con artist. You know, we don't know who she is. They could totally make it on an industrial scale. You can't avoid that. My name's Vicky Baker, and I'm a journalist for BBC World News. In this six-part podcast, Fake Heiress, I'm working with playwright and screenwriter Chloe Moss to dig deeper into this New York scandal. Together, we'll mix drama with documentary to tell the story of Anna Delvey's rise and fall. You'll hear scenes based on court reports, press coverage and interviews with those who knew her. You'll also hear from some of those people directly. Some scenes will be fictionalized because, well, what's Anna Delvey's story without a bit of make-believe? Did Anna really think she could make her lies a reality? I think she did. It doesn't sit easy with people. Anyone who's been involved with it is not going to feel very, it's a horrible feeling to realize that you've been conned. Fake Heiress. Part 6. Let Them Eat Cake. At Passages, we don't believe that addiction is a disease. I'm not an addict. My life is very stressful at the moment, that's all. I just need some headspace to figure things out. Okay. My father made me come here. He's refusing to release me. I can't release my trust fund until I work on myself. And do you want to work on yourself, Anna? Because it has to come from within. We can only help if you want that change to happen. I do. Good. So, the main thing is that you're here and that you're ready to be honest with yourself and those around you. That's huge. You should be very proud of yourself, Anna. I'm going to leave you to settle in, but first, is there. anything you need? A glass of rosé. When Anna Sorokin went on the run, she went on the run very much in the style of her alter ego, Anna Delvey. She took refuge in a highly expensive rehab center in California. This was Passages, Malibu. Forbes magazine called it one of the most luxurious places to dry out. Over the years, its guests have included an array of celebrities, including Mel Gibson and Marc Jacobs. It is unclear when Anna checked into Passages. But we know she missed her New York court appearance on the 5th of September 2017. There, she was facing three counts of misdemeanor theft of services after three bill-skipping incidents had been linked to her. But after years of pulling the same tricks, Anna knew the police were finally on her tail. But seeing as she was only recently wandering Manhattan streets, effectively homeless and without a penny to her name, you may be thinking, how did she suddenly have the money to cross the country? The answer was no. It was by pulling one of her old tricks. She paid $15,000 of fake checks into an account she held with Signature Bank, withdrawing around half the sum before they bounced. Utter recklessness was still propelling her forward. With around $8,000 in her pocket, she went on another blowout trip as Anna Delvey. It was to be her last. Let's rewind back to a few weeks before this, to the 1st of August 2017, the day after the news report came out in the New York Post. Revealing Anna's real name, Anna Sorokin, and alleging that she'd been skipping hotel bills. Still oblivious to the news, Anna's friend, Rachel Deloach-Williams, and her former personal trainer, Casey Duke, were trying to figure out what to do. The pair were sick of chasing Anna for money she owed them after she invited them on a supposedly all-expenses-paid dream trip to Morocco, and then saddled them with the costs. That was the most excruciating, stressful experience of my entire life. At first, I'm almost in denial, thinking, no, no, she's still traveling. I'm coming up with all the reasons why it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, and then it's not okay. And then I start waking up in the morning with complete dread, like, unable to breathe. Rachel occasionally messaged updates to her friend, Jesse Hawke, who had distanced himself from Anna when he came back from the group trip to Morocco. She believed that Anna was going to wire her the money. She absolutely believed it. When I came back to the States, I would talk to Rachel, and I would say, you know what? I've been voiced. I've been voiced to Anna for expenses I incurred, and I'm not hearing anything from her. Or I'm hearing this line about, oh, yeah, we transferred the money, blah, blah, blah. Here's a routing number or whatever. I mean, like, it ended up being like a month would go by, and I talked to Rachel, and she's stressed out because her card's maxed out. She can't afford her minimum payment, and she hasn't heard anything from Anna as far as payment goes. And I said to her, you know, Rachel, do you think she's a con artist? Like, I am questioning everything. And Rachel assured me she's not. She says, I know her. She's legit. Rachel and Casey decided to stage an intervention. Casey messaged Anna, inviting her to the frying pan, a waterside bar in Chelsea, Manhattan. They needed to know what was going on and if Anna would ever have the means to repay them, particularly Rachel, who was $62,000 out of pocket and going out of her way. She was out of her mind from Anna's myriad of excuses. Hey, Casey. Hey. What's this? Why is she here? I asked Rachel to come. Not everybody's out to get you. We have to figure out how to fix this. We just want the truth, Anna. Please. I can deal with the truth. What I can't deal with is endless promises you're going to pay me back when you obviously have no intention of doing so. All the lying. I've never lied. Are you for real? How can you say that? Okay, let's calm. Stay calm. Did you see the piece in the New York Post yesterday? What piece? I can't believe what they called me. Anna, it's obvious you're in trouble. You're weighing over your head. You said so to me. I did not. And that was a private conversation. We are trying to help you for God's sake. Oh, my God. Here it is. I found it. Wannabe socialite skips court. Now, everybody in New York will read that. Socialite? How dare they? I work harder than anybody I know. This could ruin my life. What about Rachel's life? There's another one. Another article. Where? The Daily News. Give me your phone. No. Give me your phone now. Anna, sit back down. It says here you're due in court in September. Do your parents know how bad this got? I told you they're not interested. What am I supposed to do now? This is a nightmare. Stop, Anna. For a second, just stop. This is not all about you. I'll get you your money, okay? I will pay everyone back. I was always going to pay you back. This is all my parents' fault because they keep changing the date that my trust fund is released. It's like some pathetic punishment. I can turn this around. I just need to finalize on the lease of my building, get the ADF up and running, and then I'll prove to everyone I can do it. The Park Avenue building? The church missions house? Yes. I just need a bit of time. That money should have come to me on my birthday. It was in my grandfather's will. That building's been leased. What are you talking about? That Swedish photography agency. Fotografiska? Yes, they just announced it. It was in the paper. It's gone. Anna, it's over. Big news. So Anna was off on her own again, having experienced perhaps her biggest blow yet. She had set her heart on Church Missions House as the venue for her arts foundation. She'd walked its corridors alongside real estate agents and big names in the hospitality industry, all while pretending she was the real deal. She had plotted its layout, visualised her future. Now the dream had evaporated. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, that's what they say. Can I help you, ma'am? No, I was passing and wanted to take a look. I'm actually the new leaseholder. You are? Yes. What's it going to be? ♪ On the avenue, there ain't never ♪ - An art gallery upstairs. Two restaurants, a bar. Actually, right where you're standing now is going to be a German bakery. Do security staff get discounts? I'm sure we can sort that. Thank you, ma'am. Do you need access to the lift? I'll have to beep you up. No, it's okay. I was just passing through. Okay. Take care, ma'am. And Rachel, meanwhile, was seeing her hopes of getting her money back also fade away. The truth was dawning on her, finally. Anna was not an heiress with a trust fund. Her parents were not going to come to the rescue and cover her almighty debts. Rachel read the New York Post story properly as soon as she parted ways with Anna and Casey. She sent the link to everyone who'd been following her personal battle for payment, including her boyfriend and Jesse. She also sent it to the New York County District Attorney's Office. Hello? Hello, am I speaking with Rachel Deloach-Williams? Yes. Ms. Williams, this is Assistant District Attorney Catherine McCaw. Thank you for your email. That's okay. I'd like to discuss your claim that Anna Delvey is a professional con woman, because I believe you're right. Would you be prepared to talk? Yes. Yes, I would. What would you do if you met a mysterious heiress on a night out? You may ask some probing questions or act cool, depending on what sort of person you are, but you would almost certainly Google her later, right? In Anna Delvey's early years on the social scene, a search would have thrown up very few results. You might have found a few society photos of her at fashion events, maybe a mention of her work at Purple magazine where she got her break as an intern. And she was, of course, very active on Instagram, where she was entirely in control of her self-image in front of 40,000-odd followers. However, as of mid-2017, Googling Anna Delvey would have taken a new turn. It would have led curious new acquaintances straight to a New York Post article about her antics. This is what happened to Ajmel Matin, an app developer from Philadelphia, who met Anna in the lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel in the days after the story came out. While I was there, I met Anna in the lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel in the days after the story came out. While I was doing an Anna Delvey deep dive on Twitter, I came across a picture that Ajmel had posted of her, much later, when she'd become a bigger media story. This is Anna Delvey, he wrote. We met last August, and I felt something was off during the night, so I Googled her when she went to the bathroom. What I found was not surprising, and I told her she needs help because what she's doing is not sustainable. This was her reaction. In the photograph, she appears to have been caught off guard. She looks tired and defensive. She has a mane of hair falling over her eyes. I asked him what happened that night. He just seemed a bit confused. Her mind just seemed to be wandering in different places. There were points where she was frantically texting someone else on her phone, and I would just be like, oh, is everything okay? And she would just be like, yeah, everything's fine. In many ways, it was a classic Anna Delvey encounter. She parroted offline she'd picked up elsewhere, trying to impress with knowledge of cryptocurrencies, among other things. She'd bragged about her arts foundation plans, even though they'd already fallen apart around her. And then, of course, she let her new contact pick up the bill for dinner. Ajmal said he didn't mind about that. He offered willingly, though in hindsight he thinks she must have considered him wealthy because he was lounging around in such a high-end hotel. However, really, he was just there to watch his friend Brian perform with his band. I parted with her, and I said, you know, this is something that's not acceptable, and I'm not sure how this is going to end. I'm free, but it's not going to end well. I think at that point, I kind of, like, tried to make her realise that whatever she was doing, she was getting super sloppy at. On the 10th of August, Anna changed the words on her Instagram profile. Let them eat cake, they read. A play on the words ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to Marie Antoinette. Rachel was not impressed by the profile change, but neither was she surprised as she already knew that Anna had a fascination with Marie Antoinette. Apparently, she had told Rachel she'd studied her at school and said she was the inspiration for her tattoo, a small black bow on her right wrist. It seems fitting that Anna idolised the 18th century French queen who was known for her lavish spending and lack of empathy for those suffering financial hardship. Rachel and Anna fell out of contact for the next few weeks. Rachel hoped the issue was now in police hands and the scheduled court hearing would be the beginning of an end. She started watching Anna from afar, checking her social media updates daily. On the day Anna was due to appear in court in New York on the 5th of September, Rachel noticed she'd posted a photo from California. Rachel was worried she might skip the country next, so she got in touch again by messaging to see if she could figure out exactly where Anna was and what she was plotting next. Anna, we really need to sort things out. Can we talk? Hi Rachel, it's not a good time for me at the moment. I'm in hospital. Oh no, are you okay? What happened? Do you even care? You have to remember that the last time they saw each other was during the intervention at the frying pan bar when Rachel and Casey confronted Anna about her lies. Anna, you can't blame me for distancing myself from you. These past few months have been hell, but that doesn't mean I don't care if you're in a bad place. None of that stuff was intentional. I'm insulted that you obviously don't believe me. It was pretty absurd. It was pretty absurd that Anna was now acting like she was the wronged one. Please, I don't want to argue with you. Why are you in hospital? Everything got too much. I was burnt out. It was pretty absurd the two of them were in friendly contact at all after all that had happened. Where are you? It doesn't matter. I'll be in touch when I'm out. I could come see you. After all that she'd been through with Anna, how could Rachel still be worried about her well-being? Thanks. I'm okay though. I hope you're getting the help you need. If you change your mind, let me know. As odd as it sounds, the two of them continued to message each other sporadically. And at one point, Rachel told Anna she was coming to California for work. I had gone out to Los Angeles for Vanity Fair's annual New Establishment Summit. And Anna knew about this because she had wanted to attend the conference and had asked for my help in purchasing a ticket, which I don't think she ever actually did. But she knew I was coming out west and knowing that, she said, can we get together while you're out here? At which point, I ended up figuring out where she was, which was a $60,000 per month rehab in Malibu called Passages. Surely Rachel wouldn't have wanted Anna appearing at one of her company's flagship events. Instead, she suggested meeting for lunch in central LA. Anna agreed. Friends here? Ex-friends? Possible future friends if Rachel could get her money back? Did Anna actually miss Rachel's company? After all, it would have been easier just to cut contact. Hi, I'm going out to meet a friend for lunch. Do you know if my car is here yet? It's waiting for you outside the gates, Ms. Delvey. Hey, I'm running a few minutes late. Nearly there. No problem. Just leaving. Miss Sorokin, I'm arresting you on suspicion of theft of services, grand larceny, and contempt of court. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. I have to cuff you now, ma'am. No. This is a sting operation all along. Rachel had been sending screenshots of all of Anna's messages straight to the police. On the 3rd of October 2017, she coordinated with officers to intercept Anna's exit from Passages. Rachel told me she was under the impression that Anna had been deliberately hiding out at a rehab centre, thinking that officers would not be able to enter to arrest her. I called the Malibu division of the LA Sheriff's Department for clarification on this. They said they could enter, but they didn't have a warrant if they had to, but they would always prefer not to. This is why luring her out of the building was crucial. Hey Anna, I'm at the restaurant. I can't see you, are you here? Rachel said she sent a message to Anna just after the arrest pretending she was at the restaurant because she didn't want her to know that she was involved. In her book, she includes the real messages and I found reading them oddly uncomfortable. The tables had temporarily turned and Rachel was now the one being duplicitous. Rachel had no clue what was going on. She had no idea what was going on. She didn't want Anna to believe her lies, just as she believed Anna's. Hello? Miss Williams, it's Catherine McCaw. We've got her. It was extremely painful and hard to sort of split my words from my intentions in that way. It made me marvel at how she had done it so casually and easily for so long. It, I think, made it obvious to me that she was a sociopath, where she could disconnect. to connect from this consciousness, of guilt or struggle with that so it was really hard and I really weighed whether or not her being arrested would change my situation or be something I should move forward with like why did it matter to me if she went to jail but again it came down to feeling like she would take advantage of anybody and I then realized that was the only way that she made any money so it seemed the right thing to do. You knew this was coming didn't you? It's like watching a heist movie when the protagonist is such a brazen risk taker you spend half the time on their side because you want them to keep going. You want to see what they might try next and yet when it all comes crashing down you're reminded why you've never opted for a life of crime as fun as it seemed at the beginning. When Anna's story started to come out in the media many people deemed her the hero or at least the anti-hero. Her crimes were not victimless but people did not necessarily see it that way. Anna certainly provokes mixed feelings especially from the people who knew her. I think it's a scary time I think we're celebrating some extreme narcissists in the world maybe out of a frustration with the systems as they are you know financial systems or political systems whatever but I think I would be wary of of latching on to someone who seems ostensibly like an anti-hero in like a very superficial way. I'd say look deeper look at their motives. The systems that Anna was working to undermine she wasn't doing it out of some sort of altruistic nobility she wanted to be a part of them. Here's Jesse Hawk again. She was young impressionable and she saw things that she wanted to have and she went for it so she was a go-getter you know she was making things happen. I don't know to what extent she may have been aware of the illegal things she was doing but I can tell you that her motivation for doing it I don't think it was ever to be like famous. or well-known publicly. I really think she was doing the things she chose to do out of her own passions. You know I'm not a bank I'm not like a New York socialite or anything like that. This is Mark Kremers. I'm a business owner that did work for a client that was basically a con woman and I would definitely say that I was a victim of that. It doesn't sit easy with people anyone who's been involved with it's not going to feel very it's a horrible feeling to realize that you've been conned. So like the whole way that people are glorifying her as this kind of anti-hero I find quite disturbing. I find that that was the thing that shocked me the most. Anna was temporarily held at LA County's Central Regional Detention Facility before being transferred back to New York. On the 26th of October 2017 she was formally charged in a Manhattan court. She was offered a plea deal which offered a potentially shorter sentence if she returned to Germany to carry it out but she refused and pled not guilty. Deemed a flight risk. She was denied bail and transferred to the notorious Rikers Island Jail. This enormous prison is located in the heart of New York in the middle of the East River between Queens and the Bronx. Famous inmates have included Tupac Shakur and Sid Vicious. It is an extremely tough place. After years of complaints about abuse and cruelty authorities have announced that it would be closing in 2026. A colleague of mine recently interviewed some past prisoners. One of them said it's a place where you have to choose predator or prey. It's not caviar hey. No it's not caviar. That what you eat normally? No. Caviar and what what else do princesses eat? I just asked you a question. And I just ignored you. Oh yeah? Yeah. Let me give you some advice. When I ask you a question you answer me. Oh let me give you some advice. Go screw yourself. A city corrections official confirmed to the New York Times that Anna had spent time in solitary at Rikers. She'd also racked up at least 13 infractions for various incidents including fighting and disobeying orders. Anna told the newspaper that being in a tough American jail was providing more material for her writing. She's reportedly working on two memoirs. One on her New York life and another on her time in prison. But when did the wider world become interested in the exploits of Anna Delvey or rather Anna Sorokin? Six months after her arrest in California Rachel published her account of their friendship and the fateful Morocco trip on the website of Vanity Fair magazine where she was still working at the time. She said she wanted to control the narrative. She heard others had stories in the pipeline. Sure enough shortly afterwards New York magazine published its big investigative expose by Jessica Pressler. People started going crazy for the story. They viewed it as the ultimate New York scam. Most people loved how shameless Anna seemed about the whole thing. At one point she even appeared to be Instagramming from inside Rikers Island prison. A selfie suddenly appeared of her and Nefertari Davis, the concierge friend from the Eleven Howard Hotel. She captioned Thelma and Louise but then soon deleted. It is likely that someone else posted it on her behalf. But Anna knew that she had an audience now. The story had created such hype in New York that people started wearing t-shirts with slogans such as fake German heiress or my other shirt will wire you $30,000. Rachel told me she once did a double take as one came towards her in the street. But soon after Rachel's article was published she was offered a book deal. For $300,000. My friend Anna came out in July 2019. The adaptation rights were snapped up by HBO from the get-go. Jessica Pressler sold her article rights to Netflix. Nefertari Davis also got a deal to be a consultant for Netflix. It turns out there was a lot of money to be made from Anna Delvey after all. But will any of it go to Anna herself? US media reported that she'd struck a deal with Netflix. Allegedly $100,000. For the story plus seven and a half thousand in royalties and 15,000 per episode as a consulting fee. But the company has since been blocked from making payments to her by the New York Attorney General who cited the so-called son of Sam law which prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes. According to US media it is thought an early payment to Anna from Netflix paid her lawyer's bill. Netflix did not respond to my request for comment. Any millennial will tell you. It is not uncommon to have delusions of grandeur. Yes, Anna's methods were unorthodox. Possibly unethical. But this is the life she's chosen to live. Sinatra said I'll make a brand new start of it in old New York. If I can make it there I'll make it anywhere. Because the opportunities in New York are endless. Anna had to kick down the door to get her chance of life. Just like Sinatra had to do it his way, Anna had to do it her way. Todd Spodek used Sinatra to both open and close Anna's case. The sentiment of New York, New York was the crux of her defense. Instead of shying away from the fake it till you make it cliche, they embraced it. Mr. Spodek claimed she would pay back everyone eventually, citing various examples, such as the time she paid her $30,000 bill at the Eleven Howard Hotel. There is a little bit of Anna in all of us, he told the courtroom. His defense attempted to make her seem aspirational and above the usual jailhouse mob. Anna turned up daily in new outfits, chosen by her personal stylist, Anastasia Walker, who had her eye on the social media long game. I selected some timeless pieces, given that everything is so public today and photographs can be saved potentially forever. That's a quote she gave to Elle magazine. Who paid Miss Walker? The stylist has not said, but it has been revealed that she's a close friend of Nefertari Davis, the concierge to her Netflix consultant. But none of this convinced the jury. On the 25th of April 2019, Anna was found guilty of grand-law arsony, which is essentially theft, and theft of services. Crucially, she was found not guilty on the specific charge related to Rachel, and on the one regarding her attempts to get a $22 million loan. In Rachel's case, the prosecutor would have had to have proven intent to defraud, which is hard. Rachel did, however, finally get let off the hook by American Express for the charges at the Moroccan Hotel. She never paid the $62,000 tab, although it took two years of wrangling. On the 9th of May, Anna Sorokin was sentenced to between 4 and 12 years in prison. She was also ordered to pay restitution of around $200,000. It does not seem that Anna's family flew over for the trial. Her father spoke to Russian outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda afterwards. "Well, if you ask me, those bank officials were guilty too, because they believed her and wanted to use her for their own ends. That explains all that nonsense going on for a time. She wasn't paid, just got all those trips and flights, all free, and they tried to get her into bed, made her different propositions. Well, I am stunned by the depths of the defendant's deception, her labyrinthine lies that kept her con afloat. She was blinded by the glitter and glamour of New York City. Is there anything the defendant wishes to say at this point? I apologize for the mistakes I've made. Anna was sorry for her mistakes. But what did she class as mistakes? The crimes themselves? Or the things that led to her getting caught? In her testimony, Rachel said she would do anything to go back in time so she'd never met Anna and none of this had ever happened. But what about Anna? Would she have stayed in Europe, climbing the intern ladder, if she knew things would turn out this way? Or did she just wish she'd been smarter and actually secured the loan she needed to make her arts foundation happen? When Anna finishes her sentence, she's likely to be deported back to Germany. So how is she doing in prison now? New York Times journalist Emily Palmer went to meet her after she was transferred to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She found her dressed in a khaki jail jumpsuit, though she still had her black rim Celine glasses on. Anna told her she'd won some credibility from prisoners who admired her for cheating the rich, though she insisted she didn't see it that way. She also said that in the outside world she'd been vulnerable to older men who would cheer her on and then seize control of her vision for her foundation. She said her associations with them validated her. Being taken seriously was incredibly important to Anna. I've often wondered what the root of this could be. I've also been thinking about why this story caught fire. I think both because it's pure fantasy and oddity. I think both because it's ethically relatable. You put yourself in Anna's shoes. You put yourself in Rachel's shoes. You think about what you would never have had the nerve to do or what you might have done better. All the red flags you would have spotted. In a sense, you indulge in the same fantasies as Anna, except yours stay in your head. There are still a lot of missing parts to this story. We have pieced together what can be known so far. More details will surely come out. You can expect another explosion of interest when the TV series runs. And also, when we hear more from Anna herself, she seems unlikely to stay quiet in the future. For now, we'll leave the final words to her. This is what she said in the prison interview. The thing is, I'm not actually sorry. I'd be lying to you and to everyone else and to myself if I said I was sorry for anything. if I said I was sorry for anything. I regret the way I went about certain things, I regret the way I went about certain things, but my motive was never money. I'm power hungry. I'm not a good person. Prison isn't too bad. It's like a sociological experiment. Afterwards, I want to move to London. If all goes well, I'll have my own investment fund someday. Would I do it all again? Yes, probably. Yes, probably. The vagabond who's rapping at your door The vagabond who's rapping at your door The vagabond who's rapping at your door