Notorious art world scammer Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey), who is best known for her infiltration of New York’s art scene in the 2010s, has been accused of running up yet another tab she could not pay.
According to court documents, Audrey Thomas, the lawyer Sorokin hired to appeal her fraud conviction case and fight her deportation order, has sued Sorokin for over $150,000 in unpaid legal fees.
Thomas’s complaint states that after hiring her in 2020, Sorokin paid Thomas a retainer for overstaying her visa and appealing her conviction, but still owes up to $152,000. Thomas alleges that her former client is trying to avoid accountability by filing her own lawsuit, in which Sorokin claims Thomas withheld audio recordings of her deportation hearings from subsequent counsel and stole Sorokin’s personal property. Thomas was fired by Sorokin in April 2022, citing “lax work habits”.
“[Sorokin] was able to remain in the United States because while she was taken to the airport and literally sitting in the gate area with her belongings in garbage bags, [Thomas and her firm] filed a writ and secured a stay from deportation removal and thus the Defendant was not removed from the United States,” Thomas's complaint states.
Thomas has endured her own legal woes, disbarred in November of 2022 for allegedly using $630,000 held in escrow from the sale of a client's apartment to help promote her radio show and book, Ego Has No Place in Law. She swore in an affidavit that Sorokin was well aware of her legal issues, claiming that the convicted con artist hired her “because she believed that if anyone would fight for her [she] would”.
Thomas’s complaint alleges five counts of fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and other causes of action.
Sorokin, who is currently under house arrest in her apartment in Manhattan’s East Village, embarked on a career as an artist while still incarcerated, turning a profit of $340,000 from the pencil and paper drawings she created to help pay her rent and secure the $10,000 bond required for her to stay at home.
Sorokin's work is to be featured (under her assumed name) as part of Rockaway Art Week, in the namesake Queens beachfront community, from 16 June to 18 June.