NEW YORK: The day of reckoning has arrived for the German con artist who passed herself off as a wealthy heiress and swindled tens of thousands of dollars from New York banks and hotels.
Anna Sorokin is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in state court following her conviction last month on multiple counts of grand larceny and theft of services.
Her defense attorney, Todd Spodek, has said Sorokin faces up to 15 years in prison on the most serious charge. She has been in custody since her October 2017 arrest.
Sorokin went by Anna Delvey when she defrauded financial institutions and Manhattan celebrity circles into believing she had a fortune of about $67 million (60 million euros) overseas that could cover her jet-setting lifestyle, high-end clothing and lavish hotel stays. The 28-year-old falsely claimed her father was a diplomat or an oil baron, and falsified bank records and forged her identity to further the scam.
Her ruse included an application for a $22 million loan to fund a private arts club, complete with exhibitions, installations and pop-up shops, prosecutors said. She was denied that loan but persuaded one bank to lend her $100,000 that she failed to repay.
In all, prosecutors accused her of stealing some $275,000, including a $35,400 bill she failed to pay for a plane she chartered to and from the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
But jurors acquitted her of two counts, including an allegation that she promised a friend an all-expenses paid trip to Morocco and then stuck her with the $62,000 bill. She was also found not guilty of one of the most serious charges in the indictment: attempting to steal more than $1 million from City National Bank.
Manhattan jurors did convict Sorokin of four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny following a monthlong trial that drew international attention and tabloid headlines about Sorkin’s courtroom fashion.
Spodek, the defense attorney, argued that Sorokin had been “buying time” and planned to settle her debts. He said she lacked criminal intent and was an ambitious entrepreneur.
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Fake German heiress faces sentencing in NY fraud case
Fake German heiress faces sentencing in NY fraud case
- Her ruse included an application for a $22 million loan to fund a private arts club, complete with exhibitions, installations and pop-up shops
- The 28-year-old falsely claimed her father was a diplomat or an oil baron, and falsified bank records and forged her identity to further the scam
Police suspect suicide bomber behind Nigeria’s deadly mosque blast
- Nigeria police said Thursday that they suspected a suicide bomber was behind the blast that killed several worshippers in a mosque on Christmas eve in the country’s northeastern Borno state
MAIDUGURI: Nigeria police said Thursday that they suspected a suicide bomber was behind the blast that killed several worshippers in a mosque on Christmas eve in the country’s northeastern Borno state.
A police spokesman put the death toll at five, with 35 wounded. A witness on Wednesday told AFP that eight people were killed.
The bomb went off inside the crowded Al-Adum Juma’at Mosque at Gamboru market in the capital city of Maiduguri, as Muslim faithful gathered for evening prayers around 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), according to witnesses and the police.
“An unknown individual, whom we suspect to be a member of a terrorist group, entered inside the mosque, and while prayer was ongoing, we recorded an explosion,” police spokesman Nahum Daso told journalists.
Daso said in a statement late on Wednesday that the “incident may have been a suicide bombing, based on the recovery of fragments of a suspected suicide vest and witness statements.”
Police officials have been deployed to markets, worship centers and other public places in the wake of the blast.
Nigeria has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2009 by jihadist groups Boko Haram and an offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), in a conflict that has killed at least 40,000 and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast, according to the UN.
Although the conflict has been largely limited to the northeastern region, jihadist attacks have been recorded in other parts of the west African nation.
Maiduguri itself — once the scene of nightly gunbattles and bombings — has been calm in recent years, with the last major attack recorded in 2021.
A police spokesman put the death toll at five, with 35 wounded. A witness on Wednesday told AFP that eight people were killed.
The bomb went off inside the crowded Al-Adum Juma’at Mosque at Gamboru market in the capital city of Maiduguri, as Muslim faithful gathered for evening prayers around 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), according to witnesses and the police.
“An unknown individual, whom we suspect to be a member of a terrorist group, entered inside the mosque, and while prayer was ongoing, we recorded an explosion,” police spokesman Nahum Daso told journalists.
Daso said in a statement late on Wednesday that the “incident may have been a suicide bombing, based on the recovery of fragments of a suspected suicide vest and witness statements.”
Police officials have been deployed to markets, worship centers and other public places in the wake of the blast.
Nigeria has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2009 by jihadist groups Boko Haram and an offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), in a conflict that has killed at least 40,000 and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast, according to the UN.
Although the conflict has been largely limited to the northeastern region, jihadist attacks have been recorded in other parts of the west African nation.
Maiduguri itself — once the scene of nightly gunbattles and bombings — has been calm in recent years, with the last major attack recorded in 2021.
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