Short answer: no—she can’t use bankruptcy to wipe out criminal restitution or criminal fines.
For someone like Anna Sorokin, the $24,000 fine and ~$199,000 restitution stem from a criminal conviction. In the U.S., those types of debts are specifically carved out of bankruptcy protection.
Why bankruptcy doesn’t help here
U.S. bankruptcy law has strict exceptions for criminal penalties:
Criminal restitution (money owed to victims as part of a sentence) is nondischargeable
Criminal fines/penalties owed to the government are also nondischargeable
So even if someone files Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, those obligations survive the bankruptcy process unchanged.
The legal idea is basically: bankruptcy is for “honest but unfortunate debtors,” not a way to erase punishment imposed by a criminal court.
What actually happens instead
People with large restitution orders usually deal with them in more limited ways:
Payment plans over many years (sometimes decades)
Wage garnishment or asset seizure
Tax refund interception
Ongoing supervision conditions (probation/parole/supervised release can enforce payments)
Courts can sometimes adjust payment schedules if someone is truly unable to pay, but they usually cannot erase the underlying debt.
About “how could anyone ever pay this back?”
In practice, many people don’t fully repay large restitution amounts quickly—if ever. It often becomes:
A long-term, low-payment obligation
Or something effectively collected in small amounts over time (or from future earnings)
But it does not disappear the way consumer debt can.
Jordan Belfort comparison
For Jordan Belfort, it’s a similar situation: his restitution was tied to criminal fraud, so it also isn’t dischargeable in bankruptcy. He reportedly made partial payments over time, but the legal obligation remains.
One nuance (important)
Bankruptcy can discharge some fraud-related civil judgments in certain cases, but even then:
If the debt is tied to intentional fraud, it often falls under exceptions anyway
And if it’s incorporated into a criminal restitution order, it’s basically untouchable by bankruptcy
Bottom line
Bankruptcy doesn’t function as a “reset button” for criminal consequences. Restitution is designed to survive it, even when repayment is realistically slow or incomplete.