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 and brought down her raw vegan food empire. While Melngailis takes much of the spotlight in Netflix’s docuseries Crappy Vegetarian: Fame. Con. 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.
First, when you find yourself Sarma Melngailis is the face of one’s one-time highest-end raw veggie eatery Pure food & Drink from inside the New york City’s Gramercy people, patronized from the famous enjoys away from Alec Baldwin, Owen Wilson, and you can Expenses Clinton, Strangis was profoundly a part of this lady due to the fact someone and also in the girl company (in all not the right indicates, it seems).
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.
Here, not, is what you should know regarding it is unusual Strangis, his link to Melngailis, their wedding on the Crappy Veggie tale, and you can in which he’s today.
How did Anthony Strangis satisfy Sarma Melngailis?
There clearly was faster known regarding Strangis than simply Melngailis, that renders feel since the she is actually the brand new blonde bombshell mostly representing Pure-food & Wine in public and you may wooing a well-heeled customers. But behind-the-scenes are a distinctly substandard relationship you to definitely turned entangled within unlawful organization transactions.
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 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 Reasonable. (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 Information. He was previously . She succinctly told the New york Blog post that he’s a “sociopath.”
Is Strangis most an excellent ‘sociopath’ just who mistreated Melngailis and you can took away from her restaurant?
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,” the guy 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 Article. He would meet Strangis at CitiBank, where Strangis had a personal account. The restaurant’s balance, meanwhile, went down to zero.
The fresh new Bad Vegetarian truck reveals a distressing tape, where Strangis and you will Melngailis be seemingly into the a hot argument:
“So I am just supposed to carry out whatever you say and you may listen towards the recommendations,” Melngalis says, less asking as claiming.
“Sure, your finalized to which! You told me you wanted joyfully actually shortly after.” He adds, when you look at the an https://datingmentor.org/cs/blk-recenze/ excellent quieter but much more menacing build, “If i tell you to take all your finances of the financial institution and you will light they on fire… Take action.”
Somehow the concept he are an effective “sociopath” pulling chain cannot take a look up to now-fetched, though the truth stays that each other Strangis and you will Melngailis were found guilty regarding stealing away from the girl bistro.
Just how did Anthony Strangis score disassembled?
There’s a whole lot more throughout the relationships hinted during the regarding trailer to own Bad Vegan, from scandal maestro Chris Smith, which introduced Tiger King and you can led Fyre: The very best Team You to Never Happened. You to definitely subject brings up a good conspiracy idea one Strangis is blackmailing their partner, in the event there isn’t any actual facts regarding today. It’s even it is possible to she try conning him! Anyone regarding truck as well as factors to Strangis guaranteeing which he would provide immortality so you can Melngailis along with her dogs dog. That is a secret nevertheless considerably wanting fixing.
But Strangis and Melngailis were definitely trapped 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 was Anthony Strangis today?
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.
Is Strangis and Melngailis still along with her?
The relationship, perhaps unsurprisingly, appears to be over. The disgraced vegan queen filed 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.
Zero word, too, toward a special relationships getting Strangis. But Melngailis provides lay him, such as the spurned ex-girlfriend ahead of this lady, regarding the rearview reflect. And you will frequently the woman is through with wedding generally speaking, as well. One to whole Bonnie and you may Clyde experience appears to have left a beneficial 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.