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 Bad Vegetarian: Glory. Ripoff. 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.
Earliest, if you are Sarma Melngailis are your face of your own one to-go out high-stop raw veggie restaurant Pure-food & Wine in Nyc City’s Gramercy neighborhood, patronized by greatest wants away from Alec Baldwin, Owen Wilson, and you will Expenses Clinton, Strangis is actually significantly involved with their due to the fact a partner and also in the lady organization (in all the incorrect implies, 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 “vegetarian Bernie Madoff” in some circles.
Right here, but not, is what you should know in regards to the it is unusual Strangis, their link to Melngailis, their wedding throughout the Bad Vegan saga, and you can in which they are now.
Just how did Anthony Strangis meet Sarma Melngailis?
There was shorter understood about Strangis than simply Melngailis, which makes sense once the she are new blonde bombshell mainly symbolizing Pure-food & Drink in public areas and wooing a highly-heeled clientele. However, behind the scenes try a distinctly unhealthy relationship that turned into entangled inside their unlawful business dealings.
Believe it or bikerplanet reviews 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 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 New york Daily Reports. He was previously . She succinctly told the Ny Blog post that he’s a “sociopath.”
Was Strangis very a beneficial ‘sociopath’ exactly who abused Melngailis and you can took out of the woman cafe?
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 Nyc Article. He would meet Strangis at CitiBank, where Strangis had a personal account. The restaurant’s balance, meanwhile, went down to zero.
Brand new Bad Veggie truck exposes a distressful recording, in which Strangis and you may Melngailis appear to be during the a heated argument:
“Therefore I’m only meant to create everything you say and pay attention to your instructions,” Melngalis states, not so much inquiring as claiming.
“Yes, your finalized on to it! Your informed me you desired cheerfully ever before once.” The guy contributes, inside the a quieter but alot more threatening build, “If i tell you to take all your money of the bank and you can light they unstoppable… Exercise.”
For some reason the theory which he is actually a beneficial “sociopath” move strings does not seem yet-fetched, though the fact stays one one another Strangis and you can Melngailis had been found guilty regarding taking away from this lady restaurant.
Just how performed Anthony Strangis rating taken down?
There can be even more throughout the dating hinted in the in the truck getting Crappy Vegan, out-of scandal maestro Chris Smith, just who lead Tiger Queen and you may led Fyre: The most effective Group You to Never Happened. That subject introduces an effective conspiracy idea that Strangis is actually blackmailing their partner, regardless if there isn’t any actual proof for the at this time. It is even you can easily she is conning him! Individuals from the trailer along with items to Strangis promising he would offer immortality to help you Melngailis along with her dogs puppy. This really is a mystery nonetheless quite searching for fixing.
But Strangis and Melngailis were definitely caught 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.)
Where 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 for 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 recorded 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 term, too, to your an alternate relationships to possess Strangis. But Melngailis keeps place him, for instance the spurned ex boyfriend-partner before the lady, in the rearview echo. And you can appear to this woman is done with relationship generally speaking, also. That whole Bonnie and you will Clyde sense seemingly have remaining an excellent 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.