Her pit bull Leo was not immortalized or moved to Xandar.
True crime fans are eager to watch another Netflix series. The meat of this story is a fraud perpetrated by a vegan restaurant owner. “Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.” This four-part documentary series follows the criminal case against Sarma Melngailis (co-founder of famed Pure Food and Wine and “it” girl in New York’s early-aughts cuisine scene).
Warning: This post contains spoilers
However, it wasn’t all glamour. Melngailis took $1.6 million from business funds over the course of her restaurant’s existence to send it to her husband. She later discovered that he was a con artist. Her embezzlement of nearly $1.6 million is enough to make anyone’s head explode. Melngailis’ motives for the crimes, which include ensuring immortality for Leon her dog, are still quite bizarre.
If you’re still reeling from Melngailis’ wild story, here’s all you need to know about Melngailis, her restaurants, and the mysterious internet connection which led to her going on the lam.
Melngailis is Netflix’s bad vegan in its latest true-crime series, ‘Bad Vegan.
Pure Food and Wine, Melngailis’ vegan restaurant, was the talk of New York in the 2000s. Matthew Kenney, her boyfriend, launched the restaurant to make the new diet popular among the wealthy and famous. The restaurant was opened in 2004 and the spin-off, One Lucky Duck Juice & Takeaway, were high-end raw vegan restaurants that served zucchini lasagnas as well as lettuce wraps long before McDonald’s.
Melngailis’ restaurant was reportedly visited by a rotating list of celebrities, including Owen Wilson, Alec Baldwin, Tom Brady, Gisele and Gisele. The series’ first episode focuses on the early days of Melngailis’ thriving business, when Kenney was still with Melngailis. They were a beautiful couple, whose vegan appreciation brought them to the attention of cameras and glossy magazines.
Shortly after Kenney’s breakup, Anthony Strangis, also known as Shane Fox, entered the picture. He is also the keeper of many other aliases.
Melngailis’s impressive celebrity connections are shown in the first episodes of Netflix’s series. Melngailis had an unresolved connection to the actor and was drawn to Shane Fox, a man who seemed to be in the celebrity’s circle. Melngailis started to talk with Fox after she noticed his connection to Baldwin via Twitter in 2011. He was a mysterious man who had a high-stakes job that was secretive, which was part of what attracted her to him.
Although his sudden appearance in Melngailis’ life raised concerns from her employees at the restaurant, everything seemed to be going well. Despite the daily struggles of owning a business, Melngailis was still able to attract customers and the business was thriving. Strangis made big promises to Melngailis, including paying off her debt if she passed a series “cosmic endurance tests.”
That’s right: cosmic.
However, the tests were ultimately about money. Strangis convinced Melngailis he was doing black ops for U.S. government. It turned out that he was just a “Call of Duty” enthusiast and got her to send him large lump sums of thousands of dollar each time.
Melngailis transferred $1.6 million from her business account to her personal account in a matter of years so that she could send Strangis money.
Melngailis was married to Strangis during that time. According to the documentary Melngailis was given an $800,000. engagement ring by Strangis at Tiffany’s.
Staff were alarmed by her growing dependency on him, especially when she stopped making payroll. Her team was unable to pay payroll five times in 2014 and she walked out. Service was shut down in winter 2015, then permanently in spring 2015.
Melngailis claims that Strangis convinced her she could be a queen of an extra-human realm. She spent 10 months on the run with him.
Melngailis claims that he was subject to mental manipulation and abuse from Strangis in the Netflix series. She said that she believed he was doing more than just working in top-secret government operations. She said that Strangis claimed that he was more than a covert agent. He was actually part “The Family”, an organization fighting demons to create a new utopia.
(Insert slightly sympathetic motivation here: Melngailis was also convinced by Strangis that Leon, her rescue pit bull, would be immortal.
Their downfall was a Domino’s pizza… that wasn’t even vegetarian.
Melngailis described how Strangis drove Melngailis across the country, from New York to Miami, Las Vegas, and finally Tennessee in the last episode of the docuseries. Strangis recorded Melngailis’s struggles to cope with changing surroundings and come to terms with the fact that her husband wasn’t who he claimed. He also recorded email exchanges between Melngailis and her mother, in which he requested money transfers to “help her care for her daughter”.
After Strangis ordered Domino’s pizza using his real name, the two ended up meeting at a Tennessee hotel.
Melngailis was convicted of fraud and sentenced for four months in prison
According to The New York Times Melngailis has pled guilty for stealing more than $200,000 from an investment. She pleaded guilty to grand theft, conspiring to fraud, and tax fraud. The disgraced owner of a restaurant filed for divorce in May 2018 after she was released from Rikers Island.
Although Leon is still mortal, he is well and with Melngailis.
An interview with Netflix’s Tudum revealed that Melngailis, his owner, is still alive and has just celebrated his 12th Birthday.
Tudum was told by her that having Leon close to me is very grounding. “If I feel worried or upset, sometimes I will hold Leon’s face and gaze into his eyes to tell him everything is going to be fine. This makes me feel better.”
Melngailis claims she used the money she earned from ‘Bad Vegan” to pay former employees.
Melngailis posted a blog post on her blog Sarma Raw shortly after Netflix dropped “Bad Vegan.” She explained why she was paid to appear on the documentary, despite the usual journalistic practices that avoid paying participants and subjects.
Melngailis posted Wednesday that “It is a standard practice — to add nothing about journalistic integrity — for subjects not get paid for participating in documentaries,” she wrote on Wednesday.
“In my case however, and at mine insistence, producers made an exception to allow me to pay the total amount my former workers were owed — amounts which accrued after I disappeared in 2015,” she said. This portion was the most heaviest of all the debts and harm that I suffered as a result of my downfall.
Melngailis also used the blog to puncture the final chapter of the series finale. It’s implied at the end that Melngailis and her ex-husband are more in touch than they seem.
She claimed that Bad Vegan’s ending was “disturbingly misleading”. “I am not in contact with Anthony Strangis, and those recordings were made at a much earlier date, intentionally for a specific purpose.”
Allen Salkin, a journalist who wrote about Melngailis for Tudum, Netflix’s editorial website, asked viewers to “reconsider” Melngailis’ actions in a post.
While Sarma’s life is imperfect, she is rebuilding a life that wouldn’t have gone as badly if she hadn’t met this man. It is time to rethink Sarma’s story. Salkin stated that this is not about giving Sarma a second chance. It’s about giving ourselves a chance too.”
