Anna Delvey’s ex-lawyer held in contempt for withholding records
A Manhattan judge Tuesday granted fake German heiress Anna Sorokin’s request to hold her former lawyer in contempt for allegedly withholding court records.
Justice Arthur Engoron gave Audrey Thomas one week to hand over the documents to Sorokin — aka Anna Delvey — who says she needs the records to fight her criminal conviction and deportation case. If Thomas doesn’t comply with the March 1 deadline, Engoron said, he’d order her to pay Sorokin’s attorney’s fees in the case.
During a hearing held over video Tuesday, Sorokin’s lawyer Duncan Levin told the judge his client is currently on house arrest and “she has no way of fighting her immigration issues and her substantive appeal.”
The 32-year-old “Soho Grifter” filed suit against Thomas in September 2022 for allegedly violating a July 27 court order to transfer the court files to her by Aug. 5.
Thomas — who was later disbarred for stealing $630,000 from a client in 2013 — has not filed any court papers in the lawsuit, nor has any lawyer appeared on her behalf in the case. She was not present at Tuesday’s hearing.
After the hearing Tuesday, Levin told The Post, “It’s reprehensible that we have to go to such enormous lengths to get something very simple — which is Anna’s court file.”
“We need it to be able to complete her appeal and fight for her to stay in the United States,” Levin said. “This is absolutely unnecessary and it’s beyond comprehension that Ms. Thomas refused to turn these documents over to my client.”
In an email, Thomas said: “I have no knowledge of any contempt order.”
“I was not served with any motion and I am sick and tired of these frivolous claims by Anna Sorokin,” she told The Post on Tuesday.
While Thomas sent two batches of documents on Aug. 8 and 9 to Sorokin’s legal team, she allegedly still hasn’t returned digital audio recordings from Sorokin’s Immigration Court hearings, according to the suit.
Also missing is a letter Sorokin mailed Thomas from when she was detained, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parole documents, files from Sorokin’s original criminal defense attorney and personal effects including headphones and sunglasses, Levin told The Post.
Levin said he’s been fighting to get these items from Thomas for months and asked Engoron to also order Thomas to pay Sorokin’s attorney’s fees since he’s spent “dozens of hours trying to get these boxes,” which “my client should not have to pay for.”
Levin told Engoron he’d repeatedly attempted to serve Thomas with the lawsuit but “I believe she is evading the court’s jurisdiction by making herself unavailable for our service.”
Engoron deemed Thomas served with the lawsuit, finding that Levin had emailed and attempted to serve her at her office and that she had knowledge of the case from media coverage.
Sorokin — who went under the alias Anna Delvey and was the subject of Netflix show “Inventing Anna” — served four years in prison after she was convicted of scamming $200,000 from banks and businesses.
Sorokin — who claimed to have a 60 million euro fortune — was released in February 2021 and then surrendered to ICE in March 2021 for allegedly overstaying her visa in addition to having a felony conviction on her record.
While Sorokin had been in an Orange County detention center pending her immigration case, Levin said she’s now fighting her cases while on house arrest.
