Anna Delvey developing reality TV project to shed ‘con artist’ label

Anna “Delvey” Sorokin is delving into 2023 with plans for a redeeming reality TV project.

“Its going to be dealing with her art and design and it will deal with her as a person and as a talented artist,” Duncan Levin, a lawyer for the woman largely debased by society as a “con artist,” tells Page Six in an exclusive interview.

The unscripted project, in its infancy stages of development, is not yet attached to a production company or network.

“We’re down the road on several really interesting opportunities and we are just looking for places where she’ll get a fair shake and where people are willing to give her this opportunity to speak for herself and tell her story,” Levin explains. 

“The collateral consequences of criminal convictions are really ruinous. Everyone she speaks to initially thinks of her as a con artist and so she has an uphill battle,” he admits. “Every single meeting, every single time she’s talking to somebody to say, ‘Give me a chance to do this.’”

Levin — a formidable criminal defense attorney who helped free Sorokin, 31, from ICE custody in October 2022 following her nearly five-year prison stint for fraud — is offering his client additional succor as she navigates her next steps while under house arrest at her East Village apartment.

While an Anna Delvey clothing line and fragrance have been loosely discussed, Levin suggests that TV is a top priority for Sorokin, once thought to be a fake German heiress, as she works to redefine her public persona. 

“Everybody has this conception of her as this character, as an actress, and obviously there’s some truth in these types of series,” says Levin, acknowledging “Inventing Anna,” the Netflix drama that put $320,000 in Sorokin’s pocket in exchange for her life rights.

Though Sorokin was able to pay a portion of her vast legal bills and restitution thanks to the Shondaland show, it didn’t do much for her reputation. Duncan insists that the somewhat icy, Machiavellian swindler portrayed by actress Julia Garner is a far cry from the “trustworthy” individual he is so charmed by. 

“She is really a lot more than the worst thing that she’s alleged to have ever done … She is a great client. She’s actually very pleasant and very funny and people think that they know her because they’re thinking about the [Julia] Garner character,” says Levin, who communicates with Sorokin almost daily. 

“She’s a very different person. But she’s hilarious and we often spend a lot of time laughing,” adds the founder of the Manhattan-based firm Levin & Associates, PLLC. “She sees the lighter side of things even though she’s got a lot of legal problems.”

Sorokin will do her best to mitigate her past on the potential reality show, Levin says, but their fight to keep her in the United States and overturn her conviction for cozening friends and businesses out of more than $200,000 will likely be captured. 

“Anna is a special case because there’s so much public interest in her story and she welcomes it,” he says, surmising that Sorokin is extolled by her “adoring fans” for her “entrepreneurial spirit” — not her felonious associations. 

“I think she’s really excited to bring that to all the people who love her so much … She really wants everybody to know who she is, what she stands for and she wants to be judged by her artistic talents,” Duncan elaborates, pointing out Sorokin’s lucrative six-figure art sales.

“I think that’s what we’re going to see a lot more of, even with the backdrop of the immigration matter, her criminal appeal and all of the other legal issues that she’s confronting.” 

Sorokin’s criminal appeal, along with her request to be saved from deportation to Germany or her native Russia, have been stalled as her former attorney Audrey Thomas has been holding her court file hostage for nearly a year. Without cooperation from Thomas — who has since been disbarred for unrelated matters — Levin is at a standstill, but remains optimistic

“In broad strokes, what we’re going to be doing in 2023 is we’re going to be appealing her criminal conviction and we’re going to be winning on that and we’re going to exonerate her. As a result of that, we are going to get the immigration court to not deport her because the predicate is that criminal conviction,” he asserts. 

“So once she gets that cleared, they are not going to deport her, they are going to let her stay here.”

Once Sorokin secures a clean record and stability in her beloved Big Apple, Levin hopes their final act involves watching her star ascend to new heights — preferably with cameras rolling.

“She is going to become a fixture of the art circuit, you’re going to see her on your televisions,” he tells Page Six, beaming.

“And I think people are going to be saying that Anna Delvey is somebody who has had some brushes with the law, but at the end of the day, she picked up the pieces, she brushed it off and she got out there and she hustled and she hustled … and she’s back on top.”

But will Sorokin ever be able to shake the “con artist” label? 

“Look, at the end of the day, I think she will, because we are a forgiving society,” says Levin, who was instrumental in ridding jailed Seagram’s heiress and Nxivm alum Clare Bronfman of a wrongfully attributed “sex offender” designation in November. 

“I’ve been so blessed over the past decades to do this type of work and see that you really can exonerate people,” he continues. “That’s really what I’m helping Anna do … exonerating her.”