Originally published at: Netflix paid con artist Anna Sorokin $320k and made her the star of her victims' story | Boing Boing
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Sounds like her victims need to bring one of these laws into play. They exist because sociopaths like Sorokin will always try to profit from their crimes given the chance.
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Apparently, since she’s using the money to pay off her legal debt (including restitution and lawyer’s fees) she’s allowed to keep the money.
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As long as most of the money is going to the victims I guess it’s not as bad as it first seemed. Still, her lawyers shouldn’t get to wet their beaks in this pool of money.
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Maybe not, but I suppose it falls into the exceptions carved out? It guess it falls under repaying the court in general?
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I mean, so this is effectively ending up like all the TV court shows, where both sides get paid and nobody really “loses.”
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Sounds like netflix is going to have to pony up some more once the defamation lawsuits start flying around.
the only real winners here, as usual, are going to be the lawyers. 
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This is the danger of “docuseries” and modern “documentaries” in general. They are entertainment, not journalism. Thus they serve entertainment first, truth second. However they are cloaked in all the auspices of journalism so people tend to believe they are real accounts.
Just look at Tiger King. Carol Baskin was painted as a villain opposite the hero who was a fame-obsessed sociopath. It was a ridiculous framing of her that was manufactured out of whole cloth. However because it’s a “docuseries” people bought into it to the point where she is harassed and threatened non-stop. All based on a version of events NetFlix manufactured from out-of-context quotes and clips. The “sequel” to that series spent about 5 mins of one episode explaining how actually none of that stuff about her was real and everyone please stop harassing her. Then they spent the rest of the series trying to frame her con artist husband’s running off to Costa Rica with his secretary as “maybe Carol killed him!”. Just disgusting.
Documentaries these days are just a slightly more truth-adjacent form of fiction, and we mustn’t ever forget that.
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Gods, I hope I never get that famous or infamous. Disgusting.
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Not sure I need to say this but the money is in an escrow account it really isn’t hers and it’s unlikely she will get access to it.
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Also I’m not done watching it but I didn’t think Rachel was portrayed horribly. Honestly her and Kacy are the most likeable characters IMO. I’m confused if Neff is supposed to come across as naïve or just callous towards Anna’s victims.
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It’s Lance Armstrong all over again…
As others have pointed out, though the escrow means victims get paid restitution, which is good, much of the money (at least $72k) will go to her lawyers—good ones who won her the best treatment from the justice system she could expect to get. And on top of that, she likely got cash (one estimate was $22k) because it still adds up to more than court-approved restitution.
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Well for our justice system to work defense attorneys need to be paid. So complaining about that is like complaining about fair trials IMO. The left over cash after restitution is definitely a grey area. I mean there are laws about not profiting from from crime, even in the sense of selling your story after the fact. I would think general fund for victims would be the best place for the money. Still if you want rehabilitation and redemption to be a possible outcome for any criminals (which I hope wall want) at some point you need to let them have the ability to do so. What part of her life story is she allowed to profit from? None? All? or just the portions where she didn’t commit crime? The latter one is the only one worth considering but how to disentangle what’s what is the problem.
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As the series and other coverage demonstrate, the only parts of this unrepentant sociopath’s life story the public would be interested in are the parts where she committed crimes or was motivated to commit crimes or tried to escape the consequences of commiting her crimes.
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She’s paying off a debt, which is as good as money in her pocket. Her laywers are not her victims and paying them is not restitution.
It would be nice if we could all get represented by the best CDAs in Manhattan, so to speak, but not being able to get them isn’t the same as receiving an unfair trial.
Alas, the crime is the part of her life story that she’s profiting from.
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I definitely support scrutiny on lawyer fees especially when they may have a conflict of interest with the victims, but lawyers do deserve to get paid even when they defend guilty people. As long as the majority of the money goes to the victims I think it is potentially OK if the lawyers also get a share.
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Watched because of Julia Garner’s work in The Americans and Ozark, but barely made it to the end of the first episode. Take the plea deal, show’s over, better for everyone all-round.
Not exactly the same, but occasionally similar?
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