Central character of the documentary series “Bad Vegan, scam on the menu” broadcast on Netflix from March 16, Sarma Melngailis rose to fame in the United States before becoming a fugitive wanted in all the country.
In 2004, this restaurateur and her partner at the time, Matthew Kenney, and their friend Jeffrey Chodorow, established themselves in New York as one of the best tables in the whole city. Their restaurant, Pure Food And Wine offers raw vegan cuisine where the biggest stars of the area come to handle the fork: Owen Wilson, Katie Holmes, Alec Baldwin, Chelsea Clinton, … Sarma Melngailis has been elevated to the rank of star in the culinary world. Before the building collapses.
The beautiful story begins to take a decisive turn when the young woman meets the one who will quickly become her husband, Anthony Strangis, in 2011. A notorious crook known to the police. The trailer unveiled by Netflix insinuates that Salma Melngailis would have been manipulated by the latter to divert millions of dollars in profits from her companies. Yet it is she who is the target of criticism, and who will inherit an unenviable nickname: the “vegan Bernie Madoff”.
A promise of immortality
In 2015, the employees of Pure Food And Wine are no longer able to be paid, and their boss disappears overnight after providing very vague information about unpaid bills. “There were tons of conspiracy theories about why she married him,” says a former associate of Salma Melngailis. “Was someone trying to blackmail her?” he continues.
In the trailer, we learn that Anthony Strangis would have promised her – to her and her dog – immortality by making her pass “cosmic endurance tests”. She would have transferred millions of dollars to him on his personal accounts to be able to supply her husband with cash… which he was going to squander at the casino. Eventually, Sarma Melngailis would end up handing over full control of his finances to him. Until their arrest.
A vegan restaurant, an immortal dog and Domino’s Pizza.
The docu-miniseries Bad Vegan: Scam on the Menu, from Tiger King executive producer and director of FYRE, on March 16. pic.twitter.com/sQYdovuKBG
— Netflix France (@NetflixFR) February 22, 2022
On May 12, 2016, she was spotted in Tennessee with her boyfriend after ordering a pizza from a fast food chain. She will plead guilty at her trial in May 2017, and serve a three and a half month sentence in Rikers Island prison. Sarma Melngailis participated in the development of the documentary series, and will offer his testimony on the whole of this affair which will have caused a lot of noise across the Atlantic.