Anna “Delvey” Sorokin says he has received hundreds of death threats since she was accused of leaving rabbits she posed for a photo shoot in a New York city park.
Sorokin, the false German heiress who stole tens of thousands of dollars from banks, posed along with three rabbits in the streets of the elegant neighborhood of Manhattan Tribeca last week. The bunnies were recognized and discovered in the Brooklyn Prospect Park days later, which caused a fierce online reaction.
But the socialite of New York City, which he denied vehemently, denied the responsibility of discarded bunny, said he is particularly surprised by the strong reaction to the incident.
“It seems to me that everything I do is wrong,” said Sorokin. “I can never do the right thing with these people.”
Sorokin shared screenshots of dozens of hate messages that he has received in recent days his Instagram account, which he called “unusable.” Some suggest that she You must be killed or take your life, including one that advises you to make someone “make a carpet with your skin.”
“It seems that many of these people, just because they are involved in the rescue of animals, feel they have the right to insult or talk to you or say something because they hide behind this they are doing,” he said.
Sorokin, 34, whose life was represented in the successful 2022 Netflix series “Inventing Anna”, took the photos with the rabbits on August 3 to create content for Instagram, where he has more than 1.1 million followers.
Shortly before filming, Sorokin asked if any of his followers in the metropolitan area of New York City had a rabbit that he could borrow, he said.
Christian Batty, 19, a stylist Sorokin met briefly last year, contacted and offered what he described as a friend’s rabbits, he said.
Sorokin added that he paid Batty to provide rabbits and for his Uber trip to return the rabbits to his owner in Yonkers, or so he thought. A screenshot from an Uber receipt that Sorokin shared with NBC News shows that the trip delivery location was just south of Prospect Park, where the rabbits were later seen.
Days later, he said, he began receiving messages on social networks about the view of rabbits in Prospect Park. A Facebook user published images of domesticated rabbits in the park to a public Facebook group dedicated to rabbits, House Rabbit Society and other users connected them with Sorokin’s photos.
Sorokin initially thought that the publications were false, but the avalanche of messages did not stop.
At first, Batty denied having abandoned rabbits, according to text -messing screenshots between Sorokin, Batty and photographer Jasper Soloff. Sorokin published those messages in his Instagram history.
“Jasper had no knowledge or contributions about how bunnies were obtained or what happened to them after the photo shoot,” said Soloff’s lawyer Gary Adelman, in a statement.
Batty did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Hours later, Batty said, he left the rabbits, and acquitted Sorokin of any participation, according to a statement on his Instagram account, which has been eliminated since then.
“When I realized that the rabbits were giving me, I panicked,” Batty said in the statement, screenshots of which Sorokin provided. “At 19, without experience in caring for animals, without friendly housing with pets and without knowledge of the available resources, I felt overwhelmed and made the worst possible decision.”
“Believing, erroneously, that there were rabbits in that area, I released them there, thinking that this was my best option,” he added.
Sorokin rejected the notion that Batty’s age was a problem.
“It’s older enough to move to New York and live alone. It should have enough common sense to handle rabbits,” he said. “We are not, as if we ask him to do anything that requires a high intellectual coefficient of him.”
Sorokin said he was worried about how the incident could affect his pending immigration case.
A jury from Manhattan condemned Sorokin in April 2019 for four charges of theft services, three charges of theft and a charge of attempted theft after she was accused of defrauding banks and friends of tens of thousands of dollars.
The prosecutors said that he persuaded friends and businesses to lend his money to pay a luxurious lifestyle with the appearance that he was the daughter of an oil baron or a diplomat worth dozens of millions of dollars.
In 2021, Sorokin was released on probation, and is fighting deportation. He has been forced to use an electronic ankle monitor and cannot leave a radius of 75 miles home with headquarters in New York.
“This time, I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “And I had the best intentions, and it’s really frustrating.”
The New York Times reported that the rabbits were rescued by the blogger Terry Chao, who saw them in the park. Chao could not be contacted immediately to comment.
Sorokin said he donated $ 1,000 to All About Rabbits rescue after the scandal. He also denied damaging rabbits by putting them with straps, as some have suggested online.
“I don’t know, I’m not a bunny professional. I didn’t know the straps were so big,” he said. “We would leave them, I don’t know, a minute or two, we would take a picture and pick them up. We were not walking them in any way. And they seemed to be happy.”
