Infamous fake German heiress Anna Sorokin wins contempt case against ex-lawyer after landing guest speaking gig with Harvard MBA students
- Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, reportedly spoke with a class of MBA students at Harvard University on Feb. 14.
- The former fake socialite is still under house arrest after being released from ICE custody in October.
Harvard Business School students received a lesson from convicted fraudster and "Inventing Anna" subject Anna Sorokin.
The Russian-born German national, 32, is just months removed from her stint at an ICE detention center, but she's wasted no time relaunching into society.
Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, confirmed to Insider that this semester she was set to make a virtual live appearance in front of MBA students at the top business school on February 14. The New York Post's PageSix first reported on her plans.
Earlier this month, Sorokin told Insider that she'd be speaking to students of Eugene Soltes, a business administration professor whose coursework, according to the school's website, focuses on corporate integrity and risk management.
Soltes didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. A representative for Harvard's MBA program confirmed her appearance this semester.
This wouldn't be Sorokin's first gig at a university. In September, the 32-year-old spoke at an "Intro to Reporting" class for Columbia University students from her ICE detention facility. The class was taught by Emily Palmer, who reported on Sorokin's trial and immigration problems for the New York Times.
Sorokin completed her sentence on larceny charges in February 2021. She pretended to be a German heiress and sought to bilk banks and other institutions for money in order to build a project she called the Anna Delvey Foundation. She was taken into custody by immigration authorities a month after her release, for overstaying her visa.
A Manhattan judge, Justice Arthur Engrain, granted Sorokin's request to hold her former lawyer Audrey Thomas in contempt on Tuesday for allegedly withholding court records, the New York Post reported. The documents, Sorokin said, are needed to fight both her criminal conviction and her deportation case, per the report.
In September, the 32-year-old filed a lawsuit against Thomas for an alleged court order violation over transferring Sorokin's court files. Engoron has ruled that Thomas has until March 1 to hand over the documents or she'll be required to pay her ex-client's attorney fees.
Months after the suit was filed, in November, Thomas was disbarred for allegedly misappropriating over $600,000 in escrow funds from an elderly client, according to a report from NY Post.
She was released from ICE custody in October, and has been confined to her East Village apartment in Manhattan on house arrest as she fights possible deportation, as well as her criminal conviction. The lack of freedom hasn't stopped the fake heiress, who wears a tracking device on her ankle, from hosting dinner parties, photo shoots, and interviews in her home.
Sorokin, on whom Netflix based its series "Inventing Anna," has several projects in the works, including a podcast and her reality TV show, called "Delvey's Dinner Club." In a November interview, she told Variety that billionaire Elon Musk and accused fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried are among her dream dinner guests.
In January, Harvard MBA students had the chance to hear from another unconventional source. Reality star Kim Kardashian gave a lecture in a "Moving Beyond Direct to Consumer" class during which she spoke about her shapewear brand SKIMS, according to the school's official newspaper.