Fake socialite scammer Anna Sorokin — who went by the last name Delvey — offered in an Instagram post this week to give out the name of her real-life boyfriend to media outlets for $10,000 after rampant speculation over who the character Chase is based on in the new Netflix show about her life, “Inventing Anna.”
Save your money.
Multiple sources who unfortunately crossed paths with the con — who posed as a German heiress — confirm to Page Six that she used to date tech entrepreneur, Hunter Lee Soik, and that he helped her break through the velvet ropes.
“Hunter is the person who got her into the scene,” a source tells us. “He is a social person globally. No one knew what he did, but he was always giving advice on how to climb the corporate ladder.”
Another source tells us, “He’s connected to a ton of very social people in the tech space.”
“Socialite scammer” Anna Sorokin’s boyfriend is said to be Hunter Lee Soik.AP; Patrick McMullan via Getty IThe New York Magazine article the show is based on described Sorokin’s unnamed paramour as a futurist “on the TED-Talks circuit who’d been profiled in The New Yorker.” And stated that Sorokin “ran around with him” in 2015 and 2016. Then, “The guy, whose app never materialized, moved to the Emirates.”
Soik, who worked as a creative consultant on Jay-Z and Kayne West’s “Watch The Throne” tour, was profiled in the New Yorker, gave a TED talk and worked in Dubai. He also, like the show’s character Chase, was working on an app that would function as a database for dreams.
Soik never made the app. His LinkedIn currently lists him as the “Founder, and Executive Chairman of the Enso Group, a Hong Kong-based Family Office focused on investing in frontier technology and breakthrough product experiences,” although the link to the company is dead.
AOL “Digital Prophet” David Shing in 2016.Roy RochlinOther names that have been flying around the rumor mill were AOL’s “Digital Prophet,” David Shing, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who is 73.
This week, Sorokin — who was released on parole in February and is now being held by ICE at Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, N.Y. — said on Instagram, “Want to know who the real ‘Chase’ is? The media outlet with the highest bid gets the exclusive. Bid starts at 10K. DM to bid.”
Sorokin partied her way through NYC’s social set as she posed as a fake heiress, bilking businesses like luxury hotel 11 Howard and private jet company Blade and conning her friends into paying for lavish trips.
She was convicted on eight counts, including grand larceny and theft of services. She was also convicted of attempted grand larceny for trying to fake her way into a $22 million bank loan.
“I don’t think she was smart, I think she was delusional,” says our source. “She was everywhere trying to rub elbows with the who’s-who. It was annoying, not clever. She was aggressive and I think people just thought if a New Yorker was conning them they wouldn’t be this obvious.”
Julia Garner as Anna “Delvey” Sorokin in “Inventing Anna.”AARON EPSTEIN/NETFLIXThe New York mag article says of Sorokin and Soik: “For about two years, they’d been kind of like a team, showing up in places frequented by the itinerant wealthy, living out of fancy hotels and hosting scene-y dinners where the Futurist talked up his app and Delvey spoke of the private club she wanted to open.”
Our source says the pair could rub people the wrong way.
“Anna and her boyfriend were not glamorous, they were just annoying,” says the insider. “She was rude and talked s–t about people. She was not nice to people. The people who liked hanging out with her were the ones impressed by her attitude …
“She met famous people briefly, but these people weren’t her friends. She called people constantly. She always wanted a favor. She wanted to party and meet rich people.”
