#ANNA DELVEY 2022 TRIAL#

Sorokin, who sketched copiously throughout her trial, tended to insert humor into her earlier drawings, poking fun at the legal system that has kept her behind bars for some four years. She acknowledged the drawings as “pre-authorized forgeries”-i.e., reproductions made by Martinez with Sorokin’s permission-each on sale for $10,000. Initially, she had messaged me about the show’s opening less than 45 minutes before it began: “BTW there is an art show about me tonight-everyone will be there if you feel like stopping by.” She had added: “Lmk how the show goes.” So I texted her about the dupes. The man in the wheely chair introduced himself as Alfredo Martinez, and he immediately told me, “Just google my name and it will answer all your questions.” (Upon googling, I found that Martinez is a celebrated artist who himself spent time behind bars in the early 2000s for charges related to earlier forgeries of graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.)įaced with a man who potentially forged the works of a famous scammer, I did the obvious-I went straight to Anna via text and asked her about the fakes myself. He raised his arms in a dramatic shrug: “I thought you’d find that funny.” “So you forged Anna Delvey?” I clarified. But I wouldn’t have known the difference between the drawing she made for Cosmo and the larger 22'-by-30' version framed before me at the pop-up gallery had a man scooting around the exhibition in a chair with wheels and his feet covered only in socks not said to me, slyly: “I recreated the artwork for her.”

The original ICE sketch now lies on my desk in the priority mail envelope she’d sent to me in February, complete with $26.95 of postage. With limited supplies, she made just one test drawing, completing it in a day: “I was still finishing the shadings when the mail officer called for me to fill out the mailing forms,” Sorokin recalled, adding, “I made her wait a little bit.” From her cell in Goshen, New York, and without access even to an eraser, Sorokin had drawn Cosmo her first published sketch since being detained by those authorities for overstaying her visa in March 2021.

#ANNA DELVEY 2022 TRIAL#

Courtesy of Alfredo Martinez and Anna SorokinĪs a crime reporter, I had followed her case-and her drawings about it-since covering her Manhattan trial and conviction for financial crimes for the New York Times in 2019, and we had met at Rikers several times for interviews during her incarceration.

Anna delvey 2022