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, while Sarma Melngailis try the face of you to-day highest-stop intense vegan eatery Pure-food & Drink from inside the New york City’s Gramercy people, patronized from the greatest enjoys out-of Alec Baldwin, Owen Wilson, and you will Bill Clinton, Strangis was seriously involved with her once the somebody plus the girl business (in every a bad ways, 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 “veggie Bernie Madoff” in some circles.
Here, however, is exactly what you have to know concerning it’s uncommon Strangis, his link to Melngailis, their involvement on the Crappy Veggie saga, and you will in which he or she is today.
Just how performed Anthony Strangis meet Sarma Melngailis?
There clearly was shorter recognized about Strangis than simply Melngailis, that produces experience since she is actually the latest blond bombshell mainly representing Pure-food & Wine in public areas and you will wooing a well-heeled customers. However, behind-the-scenes try a clearly unhealthy relationships one turned entangled within criminal team dealings.
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 Each day Development. He was previously . She succinctly told the Nyc Article that he’s a “sociopath.”
Is Strangis very an excellent ‘sociopath’ whom mistreated Melngailis and stole off their 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 told you.
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 Ny Blog post. He would meet Strangis at CitiBank, where Strangis had a personal account. The restaurant’s balance, meanwhile, went down to zero.
The newest Crappy Vegetarian trailer exposes a troubling recording, where Strangis and you will Melngailis appear to be for the a heated argument:
“Very I’m only supposed to manage anything you state and you may listen into the tips,” Melngalis says, not really much inquiring while the saying.
“Yes, your closed on to which! Your said you wanted joyfully ever just after.” He contributes, when you look at the good less noisy but a great deal more menacing tone, “Easily tell you firmly to take-all your finances out-of the bank and you may light they on fire… Exercise.”
For some reason the idea which he is good “sociopath” take strings will not look to date-fetched, although fact stays one to each other Strangis and Melngailis was found guilty of taking from the woman bistro.
Just how performed Anthony Strangis score removed?
There is certainly alot more about relationships hinted in the regarding the trailer getting Crappy Vegan, regarding scandal maestro Chris Smith, who put Tiger King and led Fyre: Best Group You to Never Happened. That subject brings up a good conspiracy concept one to Strangis are blackmailing their wife, whether or not there’s no real proof regarding nowadays. It’s also it is possible to she was conning him! Individuals on truck together with points to Strangis guaranteeing that he would provide immortality to Melngailis along with her dogs canine. That is a mystery nonetheless a whole lot 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 escort services in Savannah 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 are 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 inside 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.
Are Strangis and you will Melngailis nonetheless along 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.
Zero word, too, with the another matchmaking to own Strangis. However, Melngailis has set him, for instance the spurned old boyfriend-spouse just before her, on the rearview reflect. And you can seem to she’s done with relationship as a whole, also. That whole Bonnie and you may Clyde experience seems 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.