A 28-year-old woman was sentenced Thursday to four to 12 years in prison for stealing more than $200,000 and attempting to swindle millions from her friends and banks so she could maintain her opulent lifestyle.
New York judge Diane Kiesel also ordered Anna Sorokin, a Russian immigrant who posed as a fake German heiress named Anna Delvey, to pay $198,956 in restitution and a $24,000 fine, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
During the sentencing, Kiesel commented that she was “stunned by the depth of the defendant’s deception,” the Associated Press reports.
In an email to PEOPLE, Sorokin’s attorney Todd A. Spodek said he and his client had “hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst.”
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“We knew going into this that any post-trial sentence would likely be higher than the plea deal that was offered early on, especially given the amount of attention this case has received,” he tells PEOPLE. “Ms. Sorokin is considering her appellate options and I’m confident that this won’t be the last we hear from her.”
Sorokin was found guilty in Manhattan state court on April 25 of eight charges including attempted grand larceny in the first degree, grand larceny in the second degree, grand larceny in the third degree, and theft of services.
Authorities said Sorokin, who lived a luxurious lifestyle among Manhattan’s elite, conned friends and banks out of loans and paid for private jets using fake checks, according to WGNO.
“She stole from banks,” prosecutor Kaegan Mays-Williams told the jury, according to the
Her crimes allegedly occurred between December 2016 and August 2017.
“As proven at trial, Anna Sorokin committed real white-collar felonies over the course of her lengthy masquerade,” New York District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement after the verdict obtained by PEOPLE.
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Vance thanked the jury, prosecutors and investigators for their “meticulous investigation and resolve to ensure that Sorokin faces real justice for her many thefts and lies.”
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According to the
Sorokin’s crimes were exposed in a
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