You might know of true crime perpetrator and so-called Bad Vegan Sarma Melngailis, but you might be short on knowledge about her ex-husband (or is he?) Anthony Strangis, who was also a co-conspirator and fellow convicted criminal in the fraud that sent them both to prison Bisexual and single dating site and brought down her raw vegan food empire. While Melngailis takes much of the spotlight in Netflix’s docuseries Bad Vegetarian: Glory. Scam. Fugitives., Strangis is just as fascinating a character (and possibly shadier!). He was also central to the bizarre con at the heart of Bad Vegan.
Basic, while Sarma Melngailis is the face of your you to-time highest-avoid raw vegetarian cafe Pure-food & Drink in Nyc City’s Gramercy society, patronized by the well-known wants away from Alec Baldwin, Owen Wilson, and you may Statement Clinton, Strangis was profoundly a part of their since the someone plus in this lady team (in every an inappropriate implies, it looks).
Strangis and Melngailis were on the lam around 2015. They allegedly failed to pay staff and investors and were wanted for fraud and violation of labor law. The couple was eventually found in a Tennessee motel thanks to a decidedly non-vegan Domino’s pizza delivery order. They were accused of stealing aobut $2 million in all, and owed the government $400,000 in taxes. While they faced up to 15 years in prison, both eventually took plea deals. Melngailis eventually became known as the “vegan Bernie Madoff” in some circles.
Right here, however, is what you need to know about the really uncommon Strangis, their relationship to Melngailis, their involvement about Crappy Veggie tale, and where they are now.
Exactly how did Anthony Strangis meet Sarma Melngailis?
There was shorter recognized from the Strangis than Melngailis, that produces experience because the she is brand new blonde bombshell largely representing Pure food & Wines in public and you can wooing a properly-heeled customer base. However, behind-the-scenes are a clearly substandard relationship one to became entangled within their criminal team negotiations.
Believe it or not, one of Pure’s celebrity clients (and a friend of Melngailis) was reportedly key to introducing Strangis to his future wife: Alec Baldwin, along with his wife Hilaria Baldwin, who have said they met at Pure. And it all happened, as these things do these days, on social media.
Strangis started communicating with Melngailis via Twitter in 2011, after Strangis entered the Baldwins’ virtual orbit, according to Melngailis’ team in reporting done by Mirror Fair. (Strangis’s lawyer denies this telling of their origin story. It’s messy.)
Little else is known about the early courtship, but Strangis and Melngailis , according to the Nyc Daily Development. He was previously . She succinctly told the Nyc Article that he’s a “sociopath.”
Is Strangis very an excellent ‘sociopath’ just who mistreated Melngailis and you will took from her bistro?
Whether Strangis was the true bad guy in the Bad Vegan scandal is up to interpretation. He’s widely accused of funneling money from Pure to fuel his gambling addiction, though Melngailis refutes this particular narrative to explain their rampant stealing.
Yet through her lawyers, she has shifted blame onto her former partner. Her attorney Jeffrey Lichtman called Strangis a “complete maniac” who was responsible for the chef’s downfall. “She was badly abused and controlled by a lifelong predator and fraudster,” he said.
And Strangis brought his allegedly maniacal handling to bear on the Pure restaurant business. “There’d be times when I’d come in on a Monday and get a text or call from [Strangis], ‘Don’t deposit the money. You have to meet me here with the money,’” a former Pure operations director told the Nyc Blog post. He would meet Strangis at CitiBank, where Strangis had a personal account. The restaurant’s balance, meanwhile, went down to zero.
New Crappy Vegetarian trailer exposes a disturbing tape, in which Strangis and Melngailis seem to be inside a heated argument:
“Therefore I’m simply designed to carry out all you say and you will tune in on the rules,” Melngalis says, not so much asking since the saying.
“Sure, your finalized on to that it! You informed me you wanted cheerfully actually ever immediately following.” The guy contributes, for the a great quieter however, a great deal more menacing build, “Basically tell you firmly to take all your finances from the lending company and you will light they burning… Do it.”
In some way the theory that he are a good “sociopath” pulling strings cannot have a look up to now-fetched, although reality remains you to definitely both Strangis and you will Melngailis had been found guilty away from stealing off her bistro.
Just how did Anthony Strangis rating disassembled?
There clearly was a great deal more on the relationship hinted during the on the truck to have Bad Vegan, out-of scandal maestro Chris Smith, whom put Tiger King and you may led Fyre: Best Cluster That Never Took place. One to topic brings up good conspiracy concept one to Strangis try blackmailing their girlfriend, although there isn’t any actual proof for that now. It’s actually you can she try conning your! Anyone throughout the truck along with points to Strangis guaranteeing that he would provide immortality so you’re able to Melngailis along with her animals canine. That is a mystery nonetheless quite searching for resolving.
But Strangis and Melngailis were definitely stuck Domino’s-handed at the $99-a-night Fairfield Inn & Suites in Sevierville, Tennessee, after Strangis placed the delivery order under his own name. (Melngailis maintains that the pizza and its side of wings were meant for Strangis, and she is still strictly vegan.)
In which is actually Anthony Strangis now?
Strangis and Melngailis both took plea deals and spent time behind bars in the infamous Rikers Island prison system in New York. Strangis spent more time, with over a year before being released with five years of probation by a judge in the 2017. So while he isn’t a totally free man, he was able to walk out of court that day-dressed in a red and blue plaid shirt, blue jeans and construction boots, and saying nothing-and into the world. He can even get Domino’s if he’d like.
Try Strangis and you may Melngailis nevertheless together with her?
The relationship, perhaps unsurprisingly, appears to be over. The disgraced vegan queen registered for an uncontested divorce from Strangis in 2018, after their respective plea deals. But the current legal nature of their marriage and whether the divorce is finalized remains (like so much else with these two) vague.
No word, also, towards the an alternative relationship to possess Strangis. But Melngailis have set your, for instance the spurned ex boyfriend-spouse in advance of her, on rearview mirror. And you can appear to this woman is carried out with relationships typically, as well. You to entire Bonnie and you can Clyde sense seems to have remaining an effective long-lasting imprint.
“I have no desire to get married again,” she told the Post. “I have no desire to be in a relationship.” With Strangis or anyone else, presumably especially if they help push her into a fraud scheme and eat dairy-filled fast-food pizza.
