What did Anna Delvey do? Why she needed an ankle monitor on ‘Dancing With the Stars’
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Anna Delvey was eliminated from “Dancing with the Stars” on Sept. 24 after a short-lived run on the dancing competition show.
Delvey, whose real name is Anna Sorokin, sported a spangly dress as she performed a quickstep with partner Ezra Sosa, but one of her accessories stole the show: a bedazzled ankle monitor strapped to her right leg.
The ankle monitor was an unavoidable reminder that Delvey, 33, is a convicted con artist who was released from prison in 2022 and remains under house arrest as she fights a deportation case.
Delvey’s crimes captured the public imagination when she was arrested in 2018 for posing as a German heiress and swindling hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks, hotels and friends.
Her story inspired a 2022 limited Netflix series, “Inventing Anna,” starring Julia Garner.
Read on to learn more about the crimes Anna Delvey was accused of committing, and where she is now.
What was Anna Delvey accused of doing?
Delvey was born in Russia and spent part of her childhood in Germany.
In her 20s, she moved to New York City, where she posed as a wealthy German heiress and mixed with some of the city’s most prominent socialites and investors, plus people in the art world.
Her life in New York involved a string of scams. As described in a 2018 profile of Delvey in The Cut, Delvey traded on her status as a supposed heiress to book rooms in luxury hotels with the promise that she was good for the money.
Then, when payment never came, management would kick her out, and she would bounce to the next hotel, and the next.
All the while, she was wooing wealthy donors to raise money for the Anna Delvey Foundation, which she envisioned as an exclusive arts foundation and private club.
She was later accused of forging financial records in an application for a loan between $25 million and $35 million to finance her foundation.
That loan was denied, but Delvey managed to secure a $100,000 advance from a different bank, which she was granted based on forged bank documents, according to court records.
Delvey was also accused of bilking a private jet company out of more than $35,000, according to court documents. She allegedly assured the company she had wired the money for her flight, but the funds never materialized.
She was also accused of swindling her friends. In April 2018, Delvey’s former friend Rachel DeLoache Williams alleged in an essay for Vanity Fair that Delvey took her on a lavish vacation in Morocco, but then unexpectedly footed her with the $62,000 bill.
Delvey was later found not guilty of defrauding Williams.
In October 2017, Delvey was arrested and charged in New York on multiple charges, including grand larceny in the first degree, grand larceny in the second degree, and theft of services.
Why did she go to jail?
In April 2019, Delvey was convicted in the New York State Supreme Court on four counts of theft of services, three counts of grand larceny and one count of attempted grand larceny, according to NBC News.
The following month, she was sentenced to between four and 12 years in prison.
Delvey was released from prison on parole in February 2021 after serving about four years, according to inmate records from the Albion Correctional Facility in Albion, New York.
Just weeks after her release, she was taken into custody by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) because she had allegedly overstayed her US visa.
She remained in ICE custody until October 2022, when she was released under house arrest.
“After 17 months of immigration detention, an immigration judge recognized that continued incarceration was no longer necessary for Anna,” her immigration attorney John Sandweg said in a statement to NBC News.
“This ruling does not mean that Anna will get a free pass,” Sandweg continued. “She will continue to face deportation proceedings and her release will be closely monitored by ICE and the State of New York.”
Delvey continues to fight her deportation case.
Why did she need an ankle monitor on ‘Dancing with the Stars’?
Delvey is required to wear an ankle monitor as part of the terms of her house arrest.
She said she had gotten permission from immigration officials to compete on the show.
“I kind of got talked into doing this. I got the permission from ICE and then it was kind of too late to back out,” she told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month.
Her spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, also explained in a statement to the Associated Press that Delvey, under the terms of her previous house arrest, was allowed to travel within 70 miles of her home and “anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City.”
Delvey seemed to take a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward her ankle monitor during her time on “Dancing with the Stars,” leaning into it rather than trying to conceal it.
During her debut dance, she colored it blue and purple to match her dress, and in her final performance, the monitor was white and appeared to be bedazzled with silver rhinestones.
on “Dancing with the Stars” season 33.Eric McCandless / Disney
Delvey said the monitor didn’t slow her down on stage.
“In what way would it affect my performance? It’s actually pretty light,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
Delvey was eliminated early on from the dancing competition series, and she had an unsentimental answer when asked what she had learned during her time competing.
“Nothing,” she said.
Delvey has made more than one public appearance since her release from ICE custody.
Earlier this month, she attended New York Fashion and walked the runway for Shao New York.
She has also began posting again on Instagram after previously being banned from social media. She currently has 1 million followers on the platform.