Did a Young Woman Con N.Y.C. Socialites Into Funding Lavish Lifestyle by Posing as German Heiress?

Anna Sorokin was a fixture on the New York City club scene, wearing designer clothes and attending the fanciest, most exclusive parties. Young, petite and in her early 20s, she often stayed in luxury hotels and spent money with reckless abandon.

But prosecutors now say she wasn’t spending her own money.

Although she allegedly claimed to be a wealthy German heiress worth approximately $60 million, prosecutors allege she was a con artist who scammed money from banks, businesses and friends.

Last October, she was charged with multiple counts of grand larceny and theft of services. She is being held without bond on Rikers Island; she has pleaded not guilty.

According to a press release issued by the District Attorney of New York County, Sorokin — who was known as Anna Delvey among her nightlife friends — allegedly provided falsified documents to try to secure a multimillion-dollar bank loan. The release claims that bank representatives “said they would consider the loan if Sorokin provided $100,000 to cover legal and due diligence expenses.”

Days later, prosecutors allege, she secured the $100,000 by securing a fraudulent loan from another bank.

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The release also alleges that Sorokin deposited $160,000 in bad checks into an account and transferred $70,000 from the account to use for hotels, private jet rides, and clothing.

The alleged fraud also extended to her friends. According to prosecutors, she allegedly swindled a friend out of $62,000 during a luxurious trip to Morocco by paying for the hotel with a debit card that she knew was going to be declined. Her friend had to pay for the charges. Authorities allege that despite repeated promises, she never reimbursed her friend for the expenses.

Sorokin Speaks Out

In May, Sorokin spoke out to New York Magazine — and said that jailhouse life is not as unpleasant as it’s purported to be.

“This place is not that bad at all actually,” she said. “People seem to think it’s horrible, but I see it as like, this sociological experiment.”

“There are couple of girls who are here for financial crimes as well,” she continued. “This one girl, she’s been stealing other people’s identities. I didn’t realize it was so easy.”

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Sorokin also insisted that she had legitimate plans to create a charitable foundation. “I had what I thought was a great team around me, and I was having fun,” she told the magazine.

And while Sorokin acknowledged that she made mistakes, “that doesn’t diminish the hundred things I did right,” she said.

Sorokin’s future is uncertain. In January, she rejected a deal in which she would plead guilty to grand larceny and serve a prison sentence of three to nine years. She is now awaiting trial on multiple charges and faces up to 15 years if convicted of all counts.

Sorokin’s defense attorney, Todd Spodek, did not immediately return PEOPLE’s calls for comment, but he told the New York Post that Sorokin is innocent of the charges. “It was never my client’s intention to commit a larceny in any respect,” he told the newspaper.

Sorokin’s trial is expected to begin later in 2018.