Sarma Melngailis has revealed that she finally paid out her wronged former employees with the cash from her new Netflix show, “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.” But she has a few gripes with what, she said, the docu-series gets wrong.
Melngailis wrote on her website Wednesday that “The ending of Bad Vegan is disturbingly misleading; I am not in touch with Anthony Strangis.” She added: “I didn’t want to marry him, and that part of the story was inaccurately condensed.”
The former restaurateur behind the celebrity hot spot Pure Food and Wine in Manhattan tells the story of her downfall in the series, which premiered Wednesday.
She turned fugitive after stealing nearly $2 million from investors and staff and going on the run with her employee-turned-husband Strangis. But she has now paid them.
Sarma Melngailis was the restauranteur behind the celebrity hot spot Pure Food and Wine in Manhattan before she stopped paying staff.Annie Wermiel/NY Post“It’s standard practice — to say nothing of journalistic integrity — that subjects do not get paid for participation in documentaries, at least not the reputable ones,” Melngailis, 49, wrote.
She added: “In my case, however, and at my insistence, the producers made an exception so that I could pay the total amount my former employees were owed — amounts that accrued after my disappearance in 2015.”
“Of all the harm and the many debts resulting from my downfall, this portion weighed heaviest,” Melngailis, who has been dubbed the “vegan Bernie Madoff,” added.
Melngailis (left) has been dubbed the “vegan Bernie Madoff.”Now living with her rescue dog Leon in Harlem, Melngailis opens up on the series about how she met Strangis — then calling himself Shane Fox — when he started tweeting with her close friend Alec Baldwin.
Baldwin met his wife Hilaria at Pure, and Melngailis wrote on a 2010 blog post that she was in love with the actor, but did not want a relationship.
Strangis, who was hired as a manager at Pure in 2013, had such a hold on Melngailis, she said, that she believed that he could make her beloved pooch Leon immortal if she passed her tests and joined his secret society.
Anthony Strangis was hired as a manager at Pure in 2013. He and Melngailis later married and disappeared.The “tests” usually required her to wire him whatever amount of money he requested —leaving her unable to pay her bills, her investors and even her restaurant staff.
Melngailis and Stangis disappeared after she repeatedly failed to make payroll in 2014 and 2015. The two were arrested in May 2016 after ordering a non-vegan Domino’s pizza to the Tennessee motel room where they were hiding out.
Melngailis pleaded guilty to charges of grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and a scheme to defraud investors in exchange for five years probation and four months in jail, which she served at Rikers in the summer of 2017.
Melngailis pleaded guilty to charges of grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and a scheme to defraud investors in exchange for five years probation and four months in jail.
Strangis pleaded guilty to four counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree and was sentenced to one year in jail and five years probation, as well as having to pay $840,000 in restitution to investors.Stefan JeremiahStrangis pleaded guilty to four counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree and was sentenced to one year in jail and five years probation, as well as having to pay $840,000 in restitution to investors. It’s unknown where he is now.
She argues that other parts of her story have been inaccurate, saying, “I didn’t ‘flee’ in 2015 … nor was I “on the lam,” at least not to my knowledge. I didn’t leave voluntarily. I didn’t know what funds Anthony had at the time, and I no longer had access to my electronic devices and email/text accounts. I can already hear the troll chorus of Yeah right! but most of what I say is verifiable.”
Melngailis went on to say that “Bad Vegan” portrays her “very close” bond with her now-former staff, adding that “intentionally harming them is just about the last thing I’d have done. The good people who’d worked at the business back then were right to be devastated and angry. It was as if I’d abandoned them, which in effect I did.”
“Bad Vegan” tells Melngailis’ story over four episodes.She added: “There was no actual gun to my head so it will be said that of course I had a choice. I get that. However, the response that I must be crazy and/or stupid is an easy, reductive one. I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy. I am humiliated and shamed by all the damage caused, but have been working to rebuild a strong foundation of self-reliance and self-awareness.”
Although Melngailis said she was “relieved once payment [to her employees] went through,” she continued, “but that was just a small part of what remains outstanding … I want to be clear that I’ll keep working towards addressing it all — one way or another — eventually.”
