Was Anna Delvey Deported For Her Crimes? Here's the Deal

Anna Delvey (whose real name is Anna Sorokin) is the fake Russian heiress at the centre of Netflix’s latest scammer miniseries “Inventing Anna,” which stars Julia Garner as the title character. The show will recount how Delvey sweet-talked her way through New York social circles, collecting friends and thousands of dollars along the way. She would have gotten away with it all, but one of the many friends the con woman conned out of their life’s savings caught on to her grift and reported her to the authorities. Delvey was eventually arrested on charges of grand larceny, but one of the biggest pieces of her scammy puzzle was the fact that she committed all this fraud in the United States, but wasn’t actually an American citizen – she’s German. That puts her status in the States at risk – but was she ever deported?

Well, Delvey was arrested in 2017 but wasn’t sentenced for her crimes until May 2019, receiving four to 12 years in prison. She was also ordered to pay $199,000 in restitution and was fined $24,000. When she was released in February 2021, she went back to her normal life in New York, posting on social media and gathering attention yet again. However, it was short-lived, as she was quickly arrested by ICE the next month for overstaying her visa in the US.

It was speculated for months that Delvey would be deported back to Germany, but according to an October 2021 ABC report, she’s currently being held in New York City in ICE custody awaiting deportation.

In a Feb. 2 essay for Insider, Delvey shared a little about her life in jail, including her feelings about being arrested for overstaying her visa in the first place. “I am here because Immigration and Customs Enforcement decided that my early merit release from prison means nothing to them and, despite being perfectly self-sufficient when left to my own (legal) devices, I, in fact, present ‘a continuous danger to the community,'” she wrote.

Delvey claims the overstay on her visa wasn’t her fault. “My visa overstay was unintentional and largely out of my control. I served my prison sentence, but I’m appealing my criminal conviction to clear my name.” Delvey insists that since she paid back what she owed from her earlier scams and she’s followed all of ICE and New York’s parole rules (except the overstaying her visa part, of course), she should be permitted to stay in the US. “I’ve yet to be given a clear and fair path to compliance,” she wrote.

For now, Delvey is still being held in Orange County prison awaiting the decision on where she’ll end up next.