Netflix’s “Owning Manhattan” reality show is using artwork by convicted scam artist Anna Sorokin to sell high end properties and draw viewers.
The show follows Ryan Serhant and his luxury property agents as they convince wealthy clients to buy their properties, according to The Decider.
In a recent episode, agent Jade Shenker takes a potential client to a Hell’s Kitchen property listing for $10 million. But the client balks at that price and says he’d feel more comfortable at $7, maybe $7.4 million.
Looking for more potential buyers, Shenker hosts a party in the property, covering the walls with artwork by Sorokin, the scammer who duped friends and banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars pretending to be a German heiress and who now goes by Anna Delvey. “Who’s the artist?” one of the partiers asks.
Shenker tells him its Anna Delvey, that she’s friends with the scammer’s publicist and “developed a relationship with her.”
“While she was in jail, she decided to start painting,” Shenker said.“It was all over social media and I was like, ‘Okay, let’s put her paintings up, and let’s get people interested enough to get their phones out and take videos of this art.’”
Shenker sold the property to the original potential client for $7.4 million and made a $444,000 commission.
No word on how much she paid Sorokin, who spent four years in prison after being convicted, as CrimeOnline reported. She’s fighting being deported now and complaining that being on house arrest is “more restrictive” than being in prison even though she sold her life story to … Netflix, which produced a miniseries.
