She Paid Her Employees With Netflix Money However once the docuseries was finalized, Netflix execs decided to pay the balance of Sarma's substantial debt.
A popular haunt among weird celebrities, the restaurant enjoyed a significant amount of financial success in its first years, despite being highly leveraged due to a costly partner buyout. At one point Sarma is bringing in nearly $7m a year in gross revenue.
He was also made to pay $840,000 in restitution to investors. Melngailis filed for divorce after serving her sentence.
In the Bad Vegan documentary, we find out that Sarma didn't pay the Pure Food and Wine employees for five months, leaving them with $40,000 of back pay.
Melngailis ran a profitable restaurant for 11 years, wrote cookbooks (Raw Food Real World and Living Raw Food) and rubbed shoulders with celebrities. But now, she spends most of her time reading, hanging out with her dog, working on a memoir and recording podcasts.
Sarma Melngailis Used Money from 'Bad Vegan' to Repay Former Employees: 'I Did Not Get Paid Otherwise' Sarma Melngailis' earnings from Netflix's Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud.
They said: "The inclusion of the last phone call isn't to imply that Sarma and Anthony were still close. The call is dated "22 Months After Prison"—and Anthony clearly says at the end of the call "it was nice to hear your voice"—which we feel shows that communication between them is not common.
She Paid Her Employees With Netflix Money
However once the docuseries was finalized, Netflix execs decided to pay the balance of Sarma's substantial debt.
Sarma and Anthony ended up swindling approximately $2 million from her employees and investors and went on the run for a year before being caught by authorities when they ordered a non-vegan Domino's pizza from a Tennessee motel. The story is wild and has some seriously surprising twists and turns.
Anthony Strangis allegedly put Sarma MeIngailis through "cosmic endurance tests" that drained her bank accounts and ruined the success of her popular vegan restaurants. Vegan restaurant owner Sarma MeIngailis gave millions away to her gambler husband Anthony Strangis.
Melngailis lives in the Harlem neighborhood of New York and is active on social media — a recent Instagram post from Dec. 24, 2022, features a photo with her dog, Leon.
After her arrest, Sarma's prosperous business was shut down, leaving her in debt. Sarma's net worth was close to $1.5 million when she went to prison. According to the show, she now owes over $6 million to her investors, employees, and others.
Leon was taken in and looked after by Sarma's father John during her four months in prison, with Sarma and Leon reunited following her release. Bad Vegan is streaming now on Netflix.
Unfortunately, very little is known about Strangis' whereabouts today. He is believed to be serving his five-year probation, which ends this May, in his home state of Massachusetts.
Sarma Melngailis is a 49-year-old vegan restaurateur turned fraudster and fugitive, convicted of stealing over $1 million from investors and employees. Melngailis' popular Manhattan restaurant Pure Food & Wine was once regularly frequented by Hollywood royalty including Alec Baldwin, Anne Hathaway and Rooney Mara.
The series also shares that Strangis didn't only get money from his wife. He was also in frequent email contact with Melngailis' mother, where he would allude to problems with her daughter that he was trying to handle. Strangis convinced her mother to send several wire transfers to him, totaling $400,000.
According to The Tab, Strangis spent close to $1 million at Foxwoods Resort Casino, over $200,000 at Mohegan Sun Resort Casino, over $80,000 on watches, $70,000 on hotels and $10,000 on car rides, among other expenses.
According to his first wife, Stacy Strangis, whom he met there, when Anthony would brag that he had a huge inheritance coming and had been a Navy SEAL—which his sister says he was not—his father would back him up.
Melngailis pleaded guilty in May 2017 to stealing more than $2,000,000 from investors, and scheming to defraud, as well as criminal tax fraud charges. She received a jail sentence of nearly four months. She filed for divorce from Strangis in May 2018. The 2022 Netflix documentary series Bad Vegan: Fame.
Who Is Anthony Caruana, The Friendly Homeless Dude Wearing A Maltese Cross In Netflix's New 'Bad Vegan'?
This time, the focus is on restaurant owner Sarma Melngailis, often called the “vegan Bernie Madoff,” who went from celebrity restaurateur to fugitive after becoming involved with a man calling himself “Shane Fox.” The story of Melngailis's restaurant, Pure Food and Wine, was baffling at the time, and it remains ...
Specifically, the study found that vegan diets were the most economical and could reduce grocery bills by as much as 34 percent compared to the food costs of a typical Western diet.
Leon was eventually taken in by Sarma's father John as she spent time in prison. Once she was released, Sarma and Leon were reunited. In March 2022, Leon celebrated his 12th birthday with a cake, and even has his own Instagram account, @oneluckyrescuedog, where Sarma tracks his life and day-to-day activities.
Even though he's being played by an actor in the series, Will Richards wasn't actually a real person. Instead, he was a persona Anthony created to convince Sarma that he was part of an underground military operation.
Moments before the final credits roll in Bad Vegan, a phone call between Strangis and Melngailis plays out, recorded 22 months after Melngailis was released from prison. In the call, Strangis told Melngailis he stilled loved her and she even referred to his "meat suit" and Strangis appearing on a unicorn.