Anna Sorokin: Alleged con artist 'duped bank out of $100k by using financial jargon'
Sorokin's lawyer says she got carried away, never meant to commit a crime, and intended to pay back any money she borrowed.
Friday 29 March 2019 05:35, UK
An alleged con artist who claimed to be a wealthy German heiress persuaded a banker to lend her $100,000 (拢76,500) by using the right financial lingo, her trial has heard.
Anna Sorokin boasted of having access to a $60m (£46m) fortune and is said to have scammed her way to a lavish lifestyle in New York.
Banker Ryan Salem said the 28-year-old was turned down for a $22m (£17m) loan, which she said was to fund an arts club.
Despite red flags, Mr Salem said City National Bank did hand over $100,000 because she was so convincing.
"We always believed that she had money," Mr Salem told a Manhattan court on Thursday.
"She seemed to speak the language. She understood the financial jargon that you need to know to interact and transact in this environment."
The money was meant to be repaid within days but was allegedly never given back.
Prosecutors have said Sorokin was born in Russia "and has not a cent to her name as far as we can tell".
She is facing charges over claims she swindled $275,000 (£208,000) from friends, banks and hotels in the Big Apple over 10 months, going under the name Anna Delvey.
Sorokin allegedly lived in luxury hotel rooms she could not afford, promised a friend an all-expenses-paid trip to Morocco and left her with the $62,000 (£47,000) bill, and gave bogus bank statements to try to get her hands on a huge loan.
She is said to have handed Uber drivers and hotel concierges $100 (£76) tips in an effort to show she belonged in high society.
People who knew have claimed she would change her story, saying her father was a diplomat, an oil baron or a solar panel entrepreneur.
Jurors on the second day of the trial were shown dozens of emails between Mr Salem and Sorokin as she became increasingly hard to pin down when the bank asked for the $100,000 back.
Sorokin has been in custody since her arrest in 2017.
Her lawyer has said she never meant to commit a crime but "was easily seduced by glamour and glitz" and had intended to pay back any money she borrowed.
She faces deportation regardless of the outcome of the trial because authorities say she overstayed her visa.
Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal, is planning a television series charting Sorokin's alleged crimes.