The race to secure the story of New York's 'fake heiress'

It was an elaborate, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction scam that went on for years under the radar, but when word finally got out that a young woman had been conning people in New York by faking it as a millionaire heiress, social media went wild. Now that Anna Sorokin - aka Anna Delvey - has served her time in prison, here is the story of Netflix's race to tell the tale and her life on the other side.

Back at the end of May 2018, 27-year-old Anna Sorokin awoke for another day inside New York City's notoriously rough Rikers Island jail. Having caused financial chaos amid a small circle of people and banks, she was awaiting trial on various theft charges. Until this point, she was largely unknown to the wider world. This was all about to change.

It is not always easy to predict which stories will go viral. Everyone wants the secret formula, but the first exposé of the Anna Sorokin case in The Cut was the nearest you could get to having all the right ingredients: money, intrigue and a jaw-on-the-floor scam. According to industry tracker Chartbeat, it is believed to be the sixth most-read story of that year, worldwide.

In case you missed it: this was a story of a recent magazine intern who pretended to be the heir to a fortune and managed to con bankers, hoteliers and new-found friends out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. While on the surface she showed off designer clothes and a jetset life on Instagram, behind the scenes she was bouncing cheques and forging documents to secure loans. She went by the name of Anna Delvey, but, in reality, she was Anna Sorokin, from an average Russian family who lived in Germany. The police finally caught up with her while she was on the run in Malibu, California.

The story, with all its audacious and cinematic twists, instantly captured imaginations. Less than two weeks after the magazine article came out, prisoner number 19G0366 signed a Netflix contract for film rights to her story.

BBC News has obtained a copy of the contracts between Netflix and Sorokin, through a freedom of information request, as the paperwork was required to be lodged with state authorities after she was convicted.

They show that the first fee of $30,000 (£20,000) was agreed on 8 June. It was the "initial" payment, as her lawyer, Todd Spodek, emphasised. Underneath her signature, two names were typed - "Anna Delvey aka Anna Sorokin" - just to be sure.

Over time, payments from Netflix to Sorokin would rise to $320,000. And for the first time in almost 20 years, they triggered a controversial New York law, designed to stop convicted criminals from profiting from their crime. Netflix has abided by those US laws; there has been no legal wrongdoing, as we will explain below. But its quick action in securing the deal shows how important viral stories are to streaming services.

The profitable 'summer of scam'

In 2018, Netflix was in the market for big hits. It was churning out content to a massive subscriber base, but it was - and still is - hugely in debt. The pressure was on to produce original content, especially as other streaming services - from Disney, Apple and HBO - were known to be in the pipeline.

Sorokin's story was appealing, not just because it was an astounding tale, but also because interest was already measurable. Her name had been a trending topic on social media; people had been wearing T-shirts with "fake heiress" slogans; Elle Magazine had offered a tutorial on how to get the "Anna Delvey eyeliner" look. It was the dawn of what was becoming known as the "summer of scam" or "grifter season".

This is how The New Yorker later described the media interest in such tales: "Grifter season comes irregularly, but it comes often in America, which is built around mythologies of profit and reinvention and spectacular ascent." The magazine cited Sorokin's case - "an instant-classic" - but also referenced Billy MacFarland and his disastrous Fyre Festival, and Elizabeth Holmes and her failed biotech company Theranos.

Online, the public were eagerly consuming the related hot-takes and long reads, while the TV and film companies battled it out to produce the definitive on-screen versions. Bad Blood - the book on Ms Holmes' exploits - had already sparked a fierce bidding war for film rights, and two Fyre Festival documentaries were then in production - one by Netflix, one by a competitor, Hulu. Billy McFarland (right) and Andy King at a Magnises dinner party in 2014

It is not unusual for an entertainment company to leap straight on a story to "option it". This is Hollywood speak for the first step - a relatively small holding fee, while a project's feasibility is considered. This can often lead to limbo for a year or more, and then the whole idea may be scrapped. However, in this particular case, the next move was made without delay. Netflix revealed their big-budget production on 8 June - the same day that Sorokin signed on the line for the first $30,000 payment, and just 11 days after the article about her story was published in The Cut.

Entertainment site Variety announced the production, implying that it may have even happened sooner if it weren't for certain complications: "One insider close to the situation has said the process has been difficult and that Delvey [Sorokin] has been making calls to various talent and producers regarding whom she would like to play her." By now the story was much bigger than Sorokin herself. At the helm of the series was one of the biggest producers in the US.

Shonda Rhimes - of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal - had signed a three-year deal with Netflix in the middle of 2017 for a jaw-dropping $100m. She and the company had been waiting for the right project to make an impact. A fictionalised drama based on Sorokin's story - later named Inventing Anna - was to be her first production under this deal. The hype was instant. "Expectations are sky high. This is her first time in the writers' room for Netflix," says Lacey Rose of The Hollywood Reporter.

When Rose interviewed Rhimes, the producer said she had read the article on The Cut and expressed her interest straight away. Jessica Pressler, the article's author, was quickly contracted, too. Pressler also had a strong track record; one of her previous magazine articles had been turned into the acclaimed Jennifer Lopez movie Hustlers.

"This is the marketplace now," says Rose. "Within hours of articles coming out, you see bidding wars. The space has blown up in recent years and I don't imagine it will slow down any time soon."

Ensuring exclusivity

Netflix's deal with Sorokin later moved beyond the initial optioning deal and, after she was convicted, became a more pricey "life rights" contract. This is common practice in the US, less so in the UK. Among other things, it buys protection from lawsuits, allows you to use someone's image, and can sometimes even include the co-operation of the person as a consultant.

The contract shows Sorokin gave the company exclusive rights and also agreed to potentially co-operate as a consultant. The terms for paid consultancy work include no participation in documentaries or unscripted shows while the series is in production. And no appearances on talk shows or posts on social media about experiences in the series, without the company's permission, for three years after the final episode first airs. She is permitted to write a book, but it cannot be released within a year of the show first airing.

She can, however, speak about experiences outside the show's subject matter. In parenthesis, it says: "So if she cures cancer in the future, we are not saying she can't consult on that."