Rachel DeLoache Williams Was Conned Out Of $62,000—Here's How She's Doing Now
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Anna Delvey (real name: Anna Sorokin) made the news after a 2018 Vanity Fair piece written by Rachel DeLoache Williams extensively detailed how Delvey conned wealthy New Yorkers out of their money.
Rachel, who was a photo editor for the magazine, was a friend of Anna's before she too was conned out of a cool $62,000—a sum that was more than what she made in a year.
The Russia-born fraudster swindled an estimated $275,000 from hotels, friends, and even financial institutions. She was given a prison sentence of four to 12 years—but she was released from Rikers after just two years served.
Anna Delvey (real name: Anna Sorokin) is back in the spotlight: Netflix now has a docu-drama based on her life titled Inventing Anna. ICYMI, the fake heiress was sent to jail for conning several New Yorkers out of some serious money—as well as various businesses and financial institutions.
Anna first became a public name in 2018 when Rachel DeLoache Williams, who was a photo editor at Vanity Fair, wrote a story for the magazine about her friendship with the fraudster and how it went horribly wrong.
The TL;DR version: Anna and Rachel went on a trip to Morocco that was supposed to be on Anna's dime. Unfortunately, Rachel ended up paying everything after Anna made up a story about her credit card not working.
So, Rachel ended up getting conned out of $62,000—a sum that was more than her annual salary at the time—and wasn’t able to pay her bills or rent because of all the debt she racked up, per the New York Post. She also spent the next six months trying to get Anna to pay her back with no luck.
Rachel is played by Kate Lowes in Inventing Anna. But what happened to her after she got scammed? Here’s what you need to know.
She helped authorities track Anna down.
After it became clear to Rachel that Anna Delvey had no intention of paying the $62,000 owed, she went to the police and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. She also turned to social media and helped with a sting operation that led to Anna's arrest in Malibu, California.
The bulk of her debt was forgiven.
The jury in Anna’s trial didn’t find her guilty of stealing from Rachel, but Rachel’s credit card company forgave the bulk of her debt, ABC News reports. "I'm losing it. I'm up every night having attacks and I'm late for work," Williams testified during Anna's trial. "I'm getting phone calls from AMEX, which just causes more panics attacks."
She lost her job in 2019.
Rachel was laid off from her job at Vanity Fair in 2019, but has since been working as a writer and photographer, according to her website.
Rachel wrote a book and actually made some money from the situation.
Rachel ended up selling her story to HBO for $35,000 and she signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster for $300,000, the Post reports. Rachel’s book, My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress, was released in 2019. It was listed as one of Time’s 100 Best Books of the Year after its release.
She’s not happy about Inventing Anna.
Rachel recently wrote a piece for Air Mail, where she accused Netflix of painting a rosy picture of what Anna did to people—and making her rich.
"Netflix isn’t just putting out a fictional story. It’s effectively running a con woman’s P.R.—and putting money in her pocket," Rachel said in the essay. "People have never loved grift stories as much as they do today, and media companies are competing to give viewers what they want. In the case of Anna Sorokin, Netflix moved so quickly that their involvement influenced the nature of the very story they intended to dramatize."
Rachel also said that Anna now has “a level of notoriety from which she’ll presumably continue to profit."
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