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This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. I'm taking the classes because I heard it was amazing. I've always been fascinated by raw cuisine. I'd like a vegan restaurant one day so I want to incorporate what I'm learning here.
Plant Lab was an international culinary academy created to meet the increasing interest and demand for plant-based cuisine and the art of its preparation. Students paid tens of thousands of dollars to attend courses that featured intimate workshops and personalized instruction on making a career in the kitchen by crafting healthy, aesthetically refined, and flavorful plant-based foods. Tuition wasn't cheap, but active and former students were enthusiastic about what they learned.
It was exciting being at the forefront of a culinary revolution. Plant Lab was reimagining the future of food. Plant Lab was paving the way for a more sustainable Earth. Plant Lab was closed all of a sudden.
Plant Lab promised the most advanced on-site plant-based culinary education in state-of-the-art kitchen academies. Instead, its New York kitchen sits empty while nearly two dozen students wonder where their tuition dollars went. On Tuesday, August 28th, 2018, students of the Plant Lab culinary academies in New York City, Los Angeles, and Barcelona, Spain arrived at school to find the doors locked. There had been no advance notice of any kind.
Plant Lab was here one day and gone the next, leaving many attendees unsure of what to do. It was one of the happiest time of my life when I was coming here. Now Natalie's dream has turned into a nightmare. Last class was Monday. On Tuesday, I came to cook and they told me the school doesn't exist anymore. Closed just a month and a half into a three-month course that she paid $10,000 for. It was all my savings and I thought I'm investing in the right thing.
The next day, August 29th, 2018, the student body received an email from the Plant Lab admissions team. It is our regret to inform you that all courses at all locations are canceled until further notice. The entire team of Plant Lab has been unable to contact the CEO, Adam Zucker, since Tuesday, August 21st, 2018, at 1115 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
Adam Zucker is the sole owner of PlantLab, the email read, and the only person solely responsible for all finances and location payments. Due to these factors, we are unable to continue holding classes. You start going and you build up all this hope and anticipation for like what's going to come at the end and then out of nowhere you're blindsided and everything is canceled, everything is shut down, nothing is what it was seen. Angelica Galarza spent $17,000 for the full vegan cooking curriculum.
PlantLab students were not the only ones feeling ripped off. Several PlantLab employees announced on social media that they had not been paid in recent weeks and had no idea who to contact about it with, CEO Adam Zucker being MIA and all. Furthermore, a man contracted to design and develop PlantLab's website told Entrepreneur Magazine that Zucker owed him more than $26,000 for a year's worth of work.
The web designer last heard from Adam Zucker during the summer via emails in which Zucker blamed his mother's health issues for his lack of responses and payments. If it is any conciliation, Zucker wrote like a moron, I am dealing with this with several vendors. No excuse though. After that, the web designer never heard from Plant Lab's CEO again and neither had anyone else. Zucker's voicemail box stayed full.
But after Plant Lab's unexplained closure made the news that Wednesday night, Adam Zucker broke his silence. He sent an email to Fox 5 News in New York. This is Adam Zucker, he wrote. I did not disappear, rather dealing with some very serious personal issues. I've only acted in good faith with Plant Lab, and it is my life. I am open to speaking.
Adam Zucker sent another email to Entrepreneur Magazine the following day, pointing to a quote, "...catastrophic personal issue as the reason for his recent vacation," while also reiterating his unwavering commitment to the school.
Zucker repeated his promises in an email sent to Plant Lab students on the afternoon of August 31st. Quote, In recent days, I have been working hard to restart Plant Lab's regular operations and to continue our courses at all locations as soon as possible. That is the goal and where I am focusing my attention. This was welcoming news for the students whose tuition checks had already been cashed, as well as the employees and contractors who were still waiting to cash theirs.
However, most stakeholders remained on high alert because Adam Zucker's email failed to address his week-long absence and vague personal issues. But as media outlets would soon discover, there was a decent explanation. He was in jail.
According to public records from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, 42-year-old Adam Reed Zucker of Beverly Hills, California, had been arrested on August 21, 2018. He was charged with seven counts of embezzlement and grand theft, 23 counts of money laundering, and five counts of tax evasion. Thirty-five felony charges in total stemming from Zucker's previous job at Artissimo Designs, a wall art company based in El Segundo.
Adam Zucker was the Executive Vice President of Licensing at Artisimo Designs from 2010 to 2015, according to a news release by the LA County DA's office. During that period, Zucker allegedly created hundreds of fake licensing agreements with professional sports teams and major collegiate athletic departments for the use of their logos, fight songs, depictions of stadiums and other licensed property in Artisimo's products.
The company reportedly paid $2.4 million in licensing fees for what was, in reality, free-to-use public domain property being sold by shell companies created and controlled by their own employee, Adam Zucker. Prosecutors allege that Zucker transferred the embezzled money out of the shell corporations to his personal accounts, where he laundered close to $2 million while filing false tax returns.
Adam Zucker's scheme was revealed when Artisimo Designs was audited during a liquidation sale to new owners. He pleaded no contest on August 27th, 2018 and posted bail on August 29th, the same day PlantLab notified its students that all classes were cancelled indefinitely.
Six months later, on March 18th, 2019, it definitely became definite when Adam Zucker was sentenced to 14 years in prison. The Plant Lab Culinary Academy was shuttered for good. No refunds were offered, but some questions lingered because Adam Zucker was not the original owner of Plant Lab. It was sold to him by a celebrity chef with a murky financial past named Matthew Kinney.
I'm Matthew Kenny. I'm 50 years old and I'm a classically trained chef and the founder of our company Matthew Kenny Cuisine. Matthew Kenny is an award-winning plant-based pioneer, entrepreneur, and chef. By 2018, he had received two James Beard Award nominations, was operating more than 20 restaurants worldwide, and had authored 13 cookbooks, including one titled Plant Lab.
Matthew Kinney created the Plant Lab brand. The Plant Lab schools were a rebrand of the Matthew Kinney Culinary Academy, which opened in Oklahoma City in 2009. We opened the first state-accredited culinary school in 2009, and now we have schools, permanent or temporary, in New York, L.A., Miami, Sydney, Paris, Stockholm, London. Wow.
By December 2016, the academy had graduated almost 6,000 students and was earning $5 million in annual revenue. But a grander vision had developed. That's according to Adam Zucker, the chief operating officer of the Matthew Kinney Culinary Academy. He told Forbes there was a planned expansion to more than 20 cities in the next three years. But by June 2017, plans had changed.
Kinney decided to sell the school to his former COO, a man with no culinary background whatsoever. Adam Zucker's only work experience was in furniture sales and wall art licensing. Nevertheless, that summer, Zucker renamed the Matthew Kinney Culinary Academy to Plant Lab and installed himself as CEO. "Everyone has lost focus. It's not about Matthew Kinney. It's about the employees and the students and the patrons of the restaurants," Zucker told the Miami Herald at the time.
That's why I'm sitting here with a brand new company. We are going to go in a whole new direction." Adam Zucker lived up to that promise and, in a statement to Entrepreneur Magazine after the PlantLab CEO's arrest, "Matthew Kinney's company claimed to have no involvement with PlantLab. We are also facing losses due to PlantLab's issues and are exploring all of our options at this time," the company wrote. Apparently, PlantLab leased or subleased some of its kitchen space from Matthew Kinney's company and the payments had stopped.
The statement continued, "When we have a full understanding of the situation, we will take appropriate action. However, at this time, we have even less knowledge about this situation than the students whose classes are being canceled and others who are affected by this." In a later interview with LiveKindly, Matthew Kinney addressed PlantLab's untimely demise, "Never in a million years did I expect it would end the way it did. Obviously, we never would have sold it if that was even a thought in my mind.
Matthew Kinney may not have been responsible for the Plant Lab scandal, but the questions about his involvement were deserved. This darling of the food industry had been responsible for quite a few financial missteps during his career. Kinney has earned far more legal complaints than culinary awards. In 2017, the same year Matthew Kinney sold the rights to his culinary academies to Adam Zucker, the Miami Herald reported that the renowned chef's restaurant in Miami Beach was being sued for $1.4 million for unpaid rent.
And in Thailand, the Herald reported, "Kinney is facing legal action by resort seeking damages for breaching a contract, failing to transfer enrollment fees amounting to more than $100,000, and for issuing a $15,000 check that bounced." Before that, Matthew Kinney had been sued by the Internal Revenue Service in Maine for nearly $90,000, in addition to the 21 complaints that were filed against him in California.
Landlords sought hundreds of thousands of dollars in back rent. Employees sought unpaid wages. Vendors engaged in contractual disputes. But nothing could slow down the king of raw food. His celebrity only increased with every published cookbook and TED talk. Matthew Kinney responded to his critics and plaintiffs in a Facebook post.
He said the local media had built a case around his history of lawsuits and financial challenges, which he attributed to aggressive growth and the, quote, tremendous hurdles he had faced trying to build a new type of business for the plant-based market, which makes me wonder, how did Matthew Kinney get started in this plant-based market anyway? I was doing a lot of yoga and I just started becoming more and more connected. I had my suspicions.
At the beginning of his career, Kinney gained notoriety for his Mediterranean-inspired non-vegan cuisine. He opened a slew of restaurants in the early 90s using the same concept, which repeatedly failed under different names: Mési, Monzou, Canteen, Commune. Each venture was more troublesome than the last. The restaurants performed well when Matthew Kinney was in the kitchen, but that's rarely where he'd stay.
Patrons were more likely to bump into the handsome chef in the dining room of his establishments than in the back of the house. He was an eager celebrity and a publicity machine. And as a source told the Observer, Matthew Kinney liked to live expensively. Quote, he was filling his closet with Prada, buying a $15,000 watch, the newest Audi, and a brand new Ducati. Perhaps that was why, according to a former employee, quote, nobody who worked for Matthew was getting paid with any regularity.
In 2002, Matthew Kinney was hit with more than $1 million in liens from the IRS for non-payment of sales tax and payroll. One restaurant industry source told the Observer that Mr. Kinney started bouncing checks to his staff and his purveyors as early as 1995. That's not true, Mr. Kinney responded. We have had a few problems for a few months after September 11th, but that's it.
Around the same time Matthew Kinney was being sued by the Internal Revenue Service, Matthew Kinney was also undergoing a transformation. A raw food transformation. A plant-based resurrection of his career that he's still cashing in on today. And he was not alone in epiphany. Matthew Kinney's romantic partner, a woman named Sarma Melangilis, had also witnessed the beauty and potential of raw food. Together they started a new venture. And for at least one of them, nothing would ever be the same.
A popular vegan restaurant in New York is drained of life by its owner thanks to her boyfriend, a meat suit, and an immortal dog. Love works in mysterious ways on this episode of Swindled.
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It was never Sarma Melangilis' dream to work on Wall Street, but that's where she landed.
She ignored passion and favor of security by graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. First, Sarma got a job as an investment banker at Bear Stearns, then at Bain Capital, then at an investment firm. Six grueling years passed before Sarma decided to preserve what was left of her soul while she was still in her twenties. She quit the industry for good and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute. Thus began her life in the world of food.
It didn't take long for Sarma Melangilis to catch a break in her new industry. Though her brain and personality were the true gifts, Sarma also possesses the type of natural beauty that opens figurative and literal doors. Soon after cooking school, she was presented with an opportunity to work with one of her favorite chefs, Matthew Kinney. He was writing another cookbook and needed a recipe taster.
Sarma arrived at my office one morning for our interview. "Very casual, friendly, eager, knowledgeable and organized," Kenny said. I hired her on the spot. See what I mean? Within a year, the two were dating. Sarma Melangilis and Matthew Kenny became partners at work and at home. They moved in together with Sarma's two cats. It was 2002. Neither one of them really had a plan at this time.
The restaurant they tried to start together had recently collapsed in Matthew Kinney's pile of IRS liens. They were both virtually unemployed. Looking back, Sarma wrote, "I find it interesting that it was during this period of recuperation, with no restaurants open and only a consulting project here and there keeping us busy, that we came across raw foods. We must have been subconsciously ready."
Naturally, Sarma believes in fate, destiny, signals from the universe, magical rocks, crystals, those kinds of things. And here it was, another sign, right on cue, on a plate set in front of her, in the form of raw, uncooked, plant-based food. As the story goes, one night a friend invited Matthew and Sarma out for dinner to a raw food restaurant just blocks away from their house in New York City.
According to the book, the couple would eventually write about it. A raw food diet, like a traditional vegan diet, is comprised of naturally grown or organically and sustainably raised fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and the occasional sprouted grain. Raw foodists do not consume any animal products, except for honey and bee pollen in some cases. However, the raw food lifestyle goes even further by excluding any foods with chemically processed or pasteurized ingredients.
Finally, and most significantly, nothing is cooked during the preparation of raw food dishes, at least in the traditional sense. To avoid compromising the ingredients' digestibility and vitamin and mineral density, nothing is heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit. How does that sound? Yeah, Sarma and Matthew were skeptical too. Nothing about the experience seemed appealing.
The restaurant was small. It smelled weird. The hippies that worked there did too. The ambiance was lame, but everyone looked so healthy, Sarma noticed. There was a collective, unmistakable shine. The raw food virgins realized why after trying the food. "Sarma and I were both struck by how alert, open-minded, energetic, and very, very clear we felt," Matthew wrote. "Everyone they encountered at the restaurant that night agreed."
A girl at the table beside them shared how much better she felt since eating only raw foods, but she added, "I wish there were a 'cool' place where I could take my friends. If we had been in a cartoon," Sarma wrote, "this would have been the moment that a light bulb appeared over my head and Matthew's at the same time." Within days of that dinner, the couple immersed themselves in the raw food lifestyle. They read every book and article they could find and resolved themselves to eating raw for two weeks just to see how it made them feel.
By the end of the trial, both Sarma and Matthew were ready to make a bold proclamation. The raw food diet could change your life. Sarma said she immediately noticed that she was sleeping better, she was less irritable. She reported that she just felt better in her skin. It was like a fog had been lifted. As for Matthew Kinney, the aches and pains he associated with aging were a distant memory. His eyes were clear, his hair was thick and healthy. He said his skin started to glow.
In addition to the health benefits, the new diet also gave the couple a new purpose in life: to share the beauty of raw food with the world. In the summer of 2004, Sarma Melangellis and Matthew Kinney co-founded New York City's first upscale raw food restaurant. It was called Pure Food & Wine.
There's a quiet food movement that's gaining popularity called raw food. Now it may sound like a fad, but for those who eat raw, they say it's an invigorating and healthy way to eat. Don't let the term raw food scare you. At Pure Food & Wine, the dishes are purely delicious. The only restaurant of all the vegan and raw food restaurants that is taking the food to another level and making it more upscale.
Pure Food & Wine is no ordinary vegan restaurant. The dishes are inspiring and the flavors and textures satisfy even the heartiest of appetites. Another hot trend according to chef Sarma Melengalis: raw food with no meat, no dairy, no cooking. There's something very sexy about it so I think that that's part of the appeal. Pure Food & Wine and the accompanying juice bar were located in Manhattan's Gramercy Park.
The menu featured delicately plated raw vegetable concoctions, such as a lasagna made with zucchini instead of noodles, layered with spiced cashews instead of cheese. The restaurant also served an assortment of organic wines. They even had desserts. Everything was expensive. Nevertheless, pure food and wine was an instant hit. Sarma and Matthew's new restaurant received positive reviews from critics and landed on several best-of lists.
The food was unusual but familiar, healthy but tasty, and the spirits were as equally refreshing. But what really set Pure apart from other raw food and vegan establishments was the atmosphere. It was sexy. Low ceilings, dimmed lights and candles, dark woods, burgundy upholstery.
It was a dramatic departure from the typical plant-based restaurant, where you were lucky to be seated by a hostess that wore shoes. There's no sort of health-oriented restaurants around that are, you know, that have sort of a fun, sexy, normal restaurant atmosphere, you know, where you can come on a date and you can have, you know, we have sake cocktails and wine, a big wine list, and it's, you know, it's a place you can come and go out, and it just seemed like there wasn't anything like that. ♪
The garden added extra allure. A spacious, luxurious garden in the rear of Pure Food and Wine that could seat another 70 patrons, weather permitting. The plants and the overhead string lighting made it one of the most magical surfaces on Earth, according to Sarma. "Sometimes I even sleep out there on the big cushioned couch when the nights are cool, in the spring or fall," she claimed. Sarma Melangilis never wanted to leave. Pure Food and Wine was everything she had ever wanted, and she put everything she had into it.
which might explain why her relationship with Matthew Kinney fell apart about a year into the endeavor. In early 2005, Sarma convinced their investor Jeffrey Chodoro to buy out Matthew's Steak and Pure. Sarma was now in complete control of the restaurant. Matthew Kinney opened a new establishment and, later, a culinary school.
When he left, he pretty much sucked the negative energy out of the space, Sarma told the New York Post. All of a sudden, it was kind of a big relief. The kitchen got better, the restaurant got better, and everything felt right. Almost everything. The world still lacked a comprehensive source of raw ingredients and products. People asked Sarma where to find that stuff all the time. So that same year, she took it upon herself to create such a resource. A retail and online store named One Lucky Duck.
The business operated out of the same small apartment where Sarma also lived, about a block and a half from the restaurant. One lucky duck specialized in raw organic vegan fare, cold-pressed juices, and t-shirts.
And they're cute tees. They're not like boring, like big old oversized tees. I mean, look at little cute, stylish Sarma. Can you show your ink? Oh, yeah, my ink. Yeah, she got some work there. You know, a little ink. Sarma Mangalis believed in the brand so strongly, she had the One Lucky Duck logo tattooed on her arm. That passion was contagious.
Everybody that worked with Sarma at Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck raved about their leader's energy. Sarma was devoted. She was understanding. She was generous. They say Sarma was the kind of person that would befriend a homeless person on the street and invite them to dinner at the restaurant. And she often did. Well, your family is the restaurant. Right now, my family is the staff at the restaurant. They are my family. Yeah, they call me mom. They do. And I'm actually not kidding about that.
"Forget the food and the garden." Sarma, as her loyal employees referred to her, realized that what made pure food and wine so special was the people. She made sure her employees were well taken care of, even going so far as to cover the funeral cost for a bartender's mother. Sarma's team rewarded their boss with loyalty, which revealed itself in every detail of the operation.
As a result, the turnover rate was low, the product was consistent, they were a family, and their family home was getting more popular with each passing day.
I went to dinner last night. We went to this place, man. It's pretty wild. It's called Pure Food and Wine. It's all raw food. Nothing is cooked. All raw. It's such an art form. It's really amazing. At the next table, there's a super hot blonde sitting at the University of Pennsylvania. That's where they go. It turned out she was the owner of the place, but she's not a college girl. She looks really young. Maybe it's from eating all that raw food. Yeah, maybe it works. They said she looked young and healthy.
Every night at Pure Food and Wine, a different famous face was there. Notable names like Howard Stern, Woody Harrelson, Katie Holmes, Gisele Bundchen, and her wife, Tom Brady. Even Bill Clinton would stop by when he was in New York before catching his routine flight to a friend's island. Bill likes it raw, allegedly.
Every night at Pure Food and Wine, Sarma Melangilis would radiate the room. She'd share drinks and laughs with the customers when the doors opened. She'd share drinks and laughs with her staff after the doors closed. Cheers to another successful dinner rush. Let's do it all over again tomorrow. Every night at Pure Food and Wine, Sarma Melangilis would play her role.
Gracious host, fearless leader, savvy businesswoman. But every night at Pure Food and Wine, Sarma Mangalis was utterly alone in a room full of friends. She was working herself to death. Life was passing her by. Another busy day at the office, another lonely night at home. Nobody could relate because Sarma would never tell.
Samra Melangilis didn't care about the money or the attention. She wanted comfort and security. She wanted to feel safe and whole. She wanted someone to hold her in their arms and tell her, "Baby, everything is going to be okay." If only there were some kind of sign that such luxuries even exist on this cruel earth. Samra was in her mid-thirties by now. She was starting to have her doubts. But then it happened again. A coincidence. A manifestation.
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Pure Food & Wine turned 5 years old in 2010. 5 years of non-stop work and unbridled success. The operation was earning about $7 million in revenue every year. Nearly half a million of that was profit.
Samra Melangilis was hanging in there. She had published a book of recipes the previous year. She was repaying her investors, and she had even recently fallen in love with a man she had met at her restaurant. His name was Alec Baldwin.
Sarma wrote about Mr. Baldwin on her blog back then without mentioning his name. "I'd been spending time with a man who I cared for deeply, even loved, except it turned out he really wanted a wife and more kids, and with my focus on my brand and business, that wasn't what I wanted. I also may have had a boyfriend at the time, so it was complicated. Anyway, I cared for him such that I very badly wanted him to be happy, and he seemed very unhappy at the time.
Sarma Melangilis had an idea. She knew exactly what would cheer up Alec Baldwin. She suggested he adopt a rescue dog. Sarma would get one for herself, but that wasn't even remotely feasible with her schedule. Alec, on the other hand, could make it work. He had the resources. He could even bring the dog along to his movie sets. How dangerous could it be?
One day, Sarma found the perfect puppy for Alec Baldwin. There was a photo of a 5-month-old pit bull at the bottom of one of the 300 Humane Society newsletters to which she was subscribed. Sarma forwarded the profile to Alec Baldwin with a plea. "You must get this dog." Alec Baldwin declined.
Instead, Alec Baldwin married a yoga instructor who he met at Pure Food and Wine. So, Sarma Malangilis adopted the puppy for herself. How could she not? She hadn't stopped thinking about him for one second. Especially after she realized that he was born in March. That was the same month that Sarma's feline soulmate died. Maybe the timing of this puppy's birth was a coincidence, Sarma wrote. But, it was like an extra special small sign. Welcome home, Leon Quinn Trujillo Sterling Britt.
That was the puppy's new, Sarma-given legal name. He's a good boy. Having Leon in her life worked immediate wonders for Sarma's mental health. He was getting her outside every morning, even in the cold, which feels good, Sarma wrote. And so did meeting all of her neighbors, finally. A cute puppy like that could stop a grown man in his tracks. But Sarma was still waiting for a sign. Although, someone did have her attention.
It was this guy on Twitter. At MrFoxNYC, Sarma thought he was just so clever. Other people thought so too. Mr. Fox had over 50,000 followers on the social media website. He was a proud nerd and gamer, according to his bio. And his tweets had been featured in Rolling Stone, Funny or Die, People Magazine, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Quite the resume. Behind the popular Mr. Fox avatar was a man named Shane Fox.
and the laughs he provided were a welcome distraction for Sarma Melangilis, who was trying to get over a breakup in 2011. She had stumbled across Shane's account when his regular banter with her good pal Alec Baldwin appeared on her timeline. Soon Sarma and Shane Fox were messaging back and forth, and over time they got to know each other pretty well. They discovered that they cared a lot about the same things: dogs, animal rights, ethical consumption, etc.
Shane Fox was no vegan, but his heart was in the right place. Soon, Sarma and Shane started flirting in secret, then in public. In November 2011, Sarma tweeted, quote, Mrs. Fox be in love with Mr. Fox. Can't be helped. The only problem was that Shane Fox didn't actually live in New York City, yet. But soon, he would arrive at her doorstep. Shane Fox was about eight years younger than Sarma, but tall, 6'2", and a little larger than expected.
275 pounds. But Sarma kinda liked that. It made her feel safe. How could anyone ever hurt her with this giant by her side? Speaking of giants, there was a giant red flag in the first few weeks of their courtship. A long-time Sarma Melangilis confidant told Vanity Fair that Shane Fox ejaculated inside of Sarma after she explicitly asked him not to.
According to that confidant, Sarma had an abortion in January 2012 without even considering Shane Fox's opinion. But she continued to see him anyway because it was destiny, Shane explained. Me, Leon, you, we've traveled through past lives to be here together. It took 1,000 years, but dreams do come true.
There were also financial considerations for making the relationship work. Sarma Melangilis was up to her neck in debt, and according to himself, Shane Fox was part of a very wealthy and very powerful family. Sarma wasn't sure what Shane did for a living, but it seemed top secret and military related. All she knew was that it required him to travel overseas often to fight some unnamed enemy, and that he had some kind of surveillance and information technology team by his side. He would fall off the grid for days at a time.
But it would all be worth it, he assured. With his unlimited resources, Shane Fox promised to pay off Sarma's investors and other liabilities. But only if Sarma could pass a series of cosmic tests, as Shane had before. What kind of cosmic tests? Sarma asked, presumably. Why are me $10,000? Shane demanded. Probably. Why? Because they're testing you. Who are they? My brother. The family. They're always watching. It's the only way they will accept you.
"And if I don't, then you fail, and none of the things we've talked about will come true. And if I do, welcome home. Here are your rewards, including immortality. For me, for Leon, and for you." "He convinced me I'd be empowered in ways I couldn't imagine," Mount Gyliss told Vanity Fair.
I would have access to unlimited resources so that I could grow my brand all over the world, make the documentary I always wanted to make, the one that would finally change people's ways and help eradicate factory farming. Basically, I could do all the world-changing things I'd been quietly dreaming about. I could help whoever I want and stay young forever doing it. But, as always, there were tax implications.
Shane Fox couldn't just give Sarma the million-plus dollars she owed to restaurant investor Jeffrey Chodoro without the IRS taking a sizable cut. Unless... Sarma Melangilis and Shane Fox were officially married on December 5th, 2012. Sarma had tried to break up with Shane earlier that year, but he won her back after a trip to her mother's apple orchard in New Hampshire. The relationship continued, and so too did the cosmic test.
Shane Fox repeatedly asked Sarma for money, tens of thousands of dollars at a time. He told her the funds would be shelved and she would get it back in short order. Just do it, Sarma. Prove your loyalty. When Sarma resisted Shane's request, he would guilt trip her and gaslight her and ask her if she stopped taking her antidepressants again. I thought you wanted this happily ever after. Guess not, or else you would do what you're fucking told.
Inexplicably, Sarma Melangalus believed him.
Shane Fox did seem to have some kind of weird omniscience about him. One time he called a restaurant in LA and asked for Sarma while she was there meeting friends for dinner. He also seemed to know what was contained in emails she had sent to people he didn't know existed. There was no explanation for any of this, except that Shane had demanded the passwords to Sarma's email and bank accounts in the recent past. It was for security purposes, Shane alerted. "Will Richards, his tech guy, would soon be in touch. Make sure you pass the test."
Even more concerning, Shane Fox allegedly sexually violated Sarma Melangilis, who eventually became disgusted by her husband's physical appearance. Shane reportedly persisted on a diet of tuna salad sandwiches with extra mayo from Subway and a steady stream of midday beer. "The weight gain was intentional," he told Sarma. Looking past his "flabby meat suit," as he called it, was just another test.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Pure Food and Wine was receiving less and less of Sarma Melangilis' attention. She seemed a bit different and distant. Distracted, maybe. Ever since she started bringing Shane Fox around, he had become a regular presence at the restaurant, but Sarma never announced to the staff that they were married. She introduced him as an old friend. By 2013, that old friend became the new manager at Pure Food and Wine.
Shane Fox didn't hesitate to exercise his authority. One employee told the New York Post, quote: "He had an air of an Italian-style gangster, walking with a big gate and speaking in a cryptic fashion about money. Suffice to say, nobody trusted him. But he was the boss, when the boss demanded that the restaurant's nightly earnings be delivered directly to him so that he could personally deposit them at the bank."
The operations manager at Pure told the New York Post that every day the Pure bank account would be cleared to zero dollars. And he added that that account, which usually contained a few hundred thousand dollars, was quickly depleted. At the time, Sarmama was becoming more elusive. She used to answer texts and emails in a matter of minutes. Now her employees were unsure if she even cared.
Judging by her Instagram, she didn't. Sarma was living the dream. Traveling the globe, enjoying the sun, reading a book on the beach. What Sarma's staff didn't know was that her journeys to those places were part of Shane's cosmic quest for eternal wealth and life. They wouldn't be able to understand, so she wouldn't even try to explain. In her mind, Sarma Melangalos was doing what was in the best interest of everyone. She was doing it for the brand. Everything would make sense one day.
Sarmra Melangilis was in Rome during the summer of 2014 when her Pure Food & Wine employees stopped getting paid. She had been sent there for a special test by Shane Fox, who called an emergency staff meeting in her absence where he announced that there was no need to panic. The recent payroll problems were simply minor inconveniences because he was buying the restaurant and his transfer of millions of dollars was causing the delays. That's business, baby.
Sarma's in Rome, by the way. She's meeting her cousin. It's just more of a whole business and cat's den and things like that. So that's it. That's the first thing. The second rumor is the company changing hands. Yes, it is. On paper. I'm going to buy pure green wine in one month and up. Sarma's not going anywhere. Sarma's still going to run the show like she does and everything else. This is just a move to finally get out from under...
Jeffrey Chaudereau and that's it. And then with your taking ownership of the company, are you going to be more involved? Should we start going to you for things instead of Sarma? Yes and no. That we'll address when it's finalized and done. When the smoke clears, everyone will be taken well care of. It's important to me that you're all as happy as you can be and if there's any hiccups along the way, I want you to know that when it's done, you'll be rewarded then.
Without SARMA in New York to explain what was happening, the restaurant continued to operate as normally as possible for a few more months. Ingredients were missing from signature dishes because of unpaid vendor bills, but somehow the seasoned staff made it work. Until their paychecks bounced again. In January 2015, the Pure Food & Wine employees put down their aprons and picked up picket signs. "Our food!" "Our deal!" "Our food!" "Our deal!"
Initially the check started to bounce and we were suspicious. We were told lies about switching banks and routing errors. We're all pretty much family here. Everybody gets along. The restaurant's great, the product's great, but the way we were dealt with and me being here for eight years, I feel like it's a slap in the face.
The striking workers hired a lawyer to recover the wages and tips they were owed. They also talked to the media to tarnish their once beloved boss's reputation. Meanwhile, owner Sarma Melangalis' MIA read an article on Eater New York. She's traveling in Europe, apparently on business and hasn't been around for months. She's provided no explanation to the staff except to send an email to the managers with a super half-hearted explanation, blaming the situation on changing banks.
In a February 2015 interview with the digital wellness publication Well and Good,
Sarmelangalis attempted to explain her disappearance and how she was affected by her starving employees. "I have a tendency when I'm feeling bad and down to really hide and work on my computer and try to fix things," she said. "It's painful for me every day knowing that they're all waiting on me. That hurts me every day. I get that people don't understand. I don't expect them to. And at some point I can explain it more once the dust settles, and more importantly, once they're paid. It's heartbreaking to me."
Sarma Melangilis reappeared in March 2015 with a blog post that, once again, inadequately explained the situation. In response to a less than warm reception, Sarma deleted that post and replaced it with a follow-up. In it, she wrote, "Right now the brand, the restaurant, and I are hanging from a cliff. Yes, I'll say it because it's true. Yes, it's totally all my fault. No, it's not easy to understand how it happened.
On top of all of that, if I could rewind to when this did happen, I'd have written something like this sooner. If I could rewind farther, I'd have done a lot differently, but that's not possible now." Sarma explained that a deal to sell the restaurant to an overseas buyer had fallen through. She did not mention that that overseas buyer was her boyfriend, Shane Fox, posing as someone named Michael Caledonia. Not important, I guess, but there was some good news. Sarma announced that she was actively raising funds to reopen Pure Food & Wine.
I have now quickly been working to sell shares in the whole company, and so far the people coming together for this have been really good people," she wrote. "Ones who love what we do and truly care and want to be part of something exciting for the future." That much was true. In a matter of months, Salma Mangalis was able to raise more than $840,000 from individual investors, some of them former customers. She also tried to raise $50,000 on GoFundMe but settled for a little less than $15,000.
And true to her word, Sarma Melangeilis reopened Pure Food & Wine on April 11, 2015. But by July, it was closed again. For good. It ran out of money. Again. More than half of the new investor capital had been transferred out of the business into Sarma's personal account. She had sent it all to Shane Fox. Since 2012, Sarma Melangeilis had sent more than $1.7 million to Shane.
Sarma's mother, Susan, had also loaned Shane more than $450,000 without her daughter's knowledge or blessing. Shane had convinced Susan that Sarma needed help. She was bulimic. She was having abortions. She was on antidepressants. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, he said. Understandably so, because by this time, Sarma Melangalis knew that it was all a lie. All of that money was gone. Shane Fox had spent it all. She would never be paid back. None of his promises ever came true.
Sarma knew that Shane Fox wasn't even his real name. Her staff told her, but she didn't listen. And now it was far too late to explain or ask someone for help in recovering anything that had been lost. Shane Fox spent almost a million dollars during one trip to the Foxwoods Casinos in Connecticut. Another $200,000 at the Mohegan Sun. He purchased expensive watches, withdrew hundreds of thousands in cash, stayed in the most luxurious European hotels. Not a worry under the sun until there was nothing left.
Less than nothing, in fact. Sarma owed more than $6 million in back pay, state and federal taxes, and investor funds. And they all came calling, including 60 former Pure Food & Wine employees who filed a class action lawsuit against Sarma Melangellis demanding their missing wages. They hated that it had come to this. One of the workers told Eater New York that they would even be open to returning to the restaurant if they were made whole.
Everybody loved the place and believed in what they were doing, which makes the whole ordeal even more of a tragedy. "It's not a lot of money, but at the same time it's a lot of fucking money. The owner is so intent upon animal rights, which we appreciate, but I find it rather ironic that she doesn't support her workers in any way. She has violated so many of our rights at this point that it's laughable. We would laugh if it wasn't so sad." Sarmomelangeil said nothing.
After the restaurant closed, her phone went straight to voicemail. She wasn't responding to emails. There was an eviction notice on her apartment door. Shane Fox was missing too, because they were together, in a car traveling west. Shane, Sarma, and Leon, her dog. Morale was low. They were headed to Las Vegas, leaving the collapsing restaurant, the betrayed employees, and the destruction of lifelong friendships in their dust. The world Shane Fox created had imploded.
He wasn't who he said he was. There were no cosmic tests, no mysterious forces, no immortality, no tech guys, no powerful brothers, just a hopeless gambling addict with a long history of deceit, deception, and delusion. He told me that we were reincarnated lovers who kept finding our way through time. I was like, really? I was so in love with him, I was like, maybe that's true.
Stacey Strangis was already a single mother when she met Anthony Strangis at a gym in Manatee County, Florida in 2003. He was a tall, broad-shouldered ex-military man from Massachusetts that could make her laugh. Stacey and Anthony were married less than three months later during a Las Vegas gambling spree. By then, Stacey was pregnant.
But that still wasn't enough to inspire Anthony Stranges to land a steady job. Besides, he told Stacey, his aunt had just died and left him $5 million. So have a little patience, he pleaded, and you will be rewarded handsomely. Of course, that money never arrived. It was no surprise. That was just one of a million lies Anthony Stranges told Stacey during their marriage. He told me that he was a Navy SEAL shot in the line of action and he was at his dad's recuperating, she told the Daily Beast.
It was hard to believe, but then he had a Navy SEAL ring. Don't ask me where he got that from. eBay maybe? Stacy Wonders? I don't know.
Anthony's father, a former cop, lent credibility to his offspring's far-fetched stories by vouching for every lie that poured from his lips. They had a deranged relationship, Stacey told the Daily Beast of the father and son duo. They would, quote, threaten to kill each other with knives and swords and guns, and then 20 minutes later they would be at the table playing poker. They're whack jobs.
Together, those whack jobs would disappear for weeks at a time, usually to a casino somewhere, but Anthony would always have some kind of explanation when he finally returned home about how he had been kidnapped and tortured, or how he had to run and hide from the enemy. That man had me believing that demons were after him. He called them "they." He's like, "You just don't understand. They've always been after me. They've been hunting me my whole life." I'm like, "Then why aren't you dead?"
He's like, they're not able to find me. And if you ever taste a metallic taste in your mouth, run. Despite the imminent danger of being married to such an international man of mystery, Stacey Stranges stayed with Anthony because she loved him. But every time she thought she could fix him, he would get into trouble again. Like that time Anthony was arrested for selling his father's prized sports car without his consent. Or when Anthony went to jail for impersonating a police officer by flashing his dad's old badge.
There was just something about Anthony Strangest, Stacey remembers. It was bad news, but for some reason, it was hard to let him go. Things ended finally. We went to the hospital because his father had a heart attack and he had heart surgery. And my daughter and I left. She had a baseball game. He says, I'm going to stay a little longer. I said, okay, don't be late. It's our turn to work the concession stand tonight. I never seen or heard from Anthony again.
These interview clips with Stacey Stranges come courtesy of a new Netflix docuseries about this story called Bad Vegan. Stream it today. Bad Vegan on Netflix. The last time Stacey saw Anthony Stranges was in 2006. They had fallen behind on the mortgage. Anthony had already pawned everything she owned. When there was nothing left, Anthony left, and he never sent a penny or a thought to his former lover or their 8-month-old son back home.
Anthony Stranges' mother told Vanity Fair that it's assumed that after abandoning his family, Anthony went to live with his father in a van down by the casino. They traveled from gambling town to gambling town over the next several years while calling New Bedford, Massachusetts home. Vanity Fair also reported that Anthony's father, John, was found dead in that van on July 6, 2012. The exact cause is unknown.
By that time, Anthony had already moved on. He'd hit the jackpot with his Mr. Fox Twitter account a year earlier. He had celebrity restaurateur Sarma Melangellis on the hook. Five years later, Anthony Strangis and his wife Sarma Melangellis were being indicted. 24 counts, including second-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal tax fraud, first-degree scheme to defraud, and violations of labor laws. An arrest warrant was issued. The couple had been missing for 10 months.
The couple spent months in Las Vegas before traveling to Louisiana, then to Tennessee.
Anthony Strangis would spend all day cranking the old slot machine. Sarma was essentially on hotel room confinement. Some days she couldn't even force herself to get out of bed, but at least Leon was there. Leon was the only thing that she knew to be real anymore. The truth was embarrassingly obvious in hindsight, but it always is. Sarma Melangilis trusted the wrong person, and he ruined her life. It was terrifying to think about what might happen next, but Sarma knew that she would be relieved when it was over.
Anthony Strangis needed a fresh start too. He'd been playing Call of Duty in a hotel room for 40-something days straight. On May 7th, 2016, he tweeted from a new account, quote, What's seriously the point of anything at all? And when a follower asked if he was talking about suicide, Strangis responded, quote, Nah, bruh. That's what happens when you get to the top of the hill and realize now, shit is just boring as fuck.
To liven up the party, Anthony Stranges ordered himself a Domino's Pizza with a side of chicken wings. He told the restaurant he was staying at the Fairfield Inn & Suites between Pigeon Forge and Sevierville, Tennessee near Dollywood. He gave them his real name. On May 12, 2016, around 3:00 PM, the front desk of the Fairfield Inn & Suites requested Anthony Stranges come down to the lobby because there was a problem with his room.
When Anthony appeared, he was immediately surrounded by Sevierville patrol officers and taken into custody. Then detectives went up to the couple's room, number 316, and knocked on the door. A neighbor peeked her head out of an adjacent room. It was Sarma Malangalis. She and Anthony had been staying in separate rooms. At first, Sarma identified herself as Emma Donovan, a woman who was just curious about the source of all the commotion.
But she was forced to give up the ruse when an officer pointed out the bandage concealing her one lucky duck tattoo. Asarma was marched through the hotel lobby and placed into the back of a patrol car. She begged the officers to care for Leon. It was clear that she felt nothing for Anthony. "She's not fond of him, we could tell that," Sevierville Detective Kevin Bush told the New York Post. "I said to Malangilis, 'Give Stranges a hug, give him a kiss,' and she didn't want to."
The Sevierville Police Department arrested two fugitives on the run thanks to a pizza order. Detectives say Sarma Melangilis was wanted in New York. She was the owner of a popular vegan restaurant in Manhattan before disappearing last year without paying her staff. She's facing several lawsuits from them and many felony charges. Detectives tracked her and another wanted man down after they ordered a pizza from a Sevierville Domino's. Police confirmed the two were staying at a nearby hotel and arrested them Tuesday afternoon.
Sarma Melangilis and Anthony Stranges spent nine days in Sevier County Jail before being transported to New York, where the authorities and media were waiting. In headlines, Sarma was referred to as the vegan Bernie Madoff, even though their cases have few similarities, and they painted her as a pizza-eating hypocrite, even though Sarma never touched the stuff.
Contrary to popular belief, while on the run, Sarma remained a strict vegan. It's since been reported that she survived on Chipotle bowls. "Mengalis and Straud has allegedly spent $2 million at Foxwoods Casino, Mohegan Sun, and luxury travel around the world. And according to prosecutors, she also owes $400,000 in taxes. But her attorney says she denies the allegations."
After five days at Rikers Island, Sarma Mangalis bailed out and reunited with Leon, whom her father had retrieved from Tennessee. She told the New York Post that her situation was, "...the worst nightmare you can think of. If I had terminal cancer, it would be better than this, because at least then I did not cause it." But she vowed to make it right, "...I love my workers. When I come out, I will find something to do and pay it back."
Meanwhile, Anthony Strangest could not find anyone to pay his $300,000 bond, so in prison he sat until his court date, which happened exactly one year later. On May 22, 2017, Anthony Strangest pleaded guilty to four counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree. He was ordered to pay $840,000 to the investors he defrauded and sentenced to time served. In addition, Anthony Strangest must serve five years of probation, but otherwise, he was a free man.
That same month, Sarma Melangalis accepted a plea deal of her own. Her lawyers argued that it was simply a case of a failed endeavor. There was no malice. Restaurants go belly up all the time, especially when their owners are brainwashed and abused as Sarma had been. Anthony Stranges' lawyers fired back and pinned the blame on the restaurant owner. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was too savvy not to have known, they accused.
Sarma Melangilis pleaded guilty to grand larceny, criminal tax fraud, and a scheme to defraud. She was sentenced to four months in jail, plus five years probation, and ordered to pay back $1.5 million in restitution. Tomorrow, June 21st, I go away, most likely to Rikers for a few months, Sarma wrote on Facebook. It also happens to be the summer solstice, the change of seasons and the longest day of the year.
Seems like the right day to be going. I'm actually relieved this day is here. Sarma was released from prison in October 2017. In 2018, she filed for divorce from Anthony Stranges. She re-emerged in public with a blog post in May 2019 about her prison experience and what led to it. Part of it read, quote,
After I came back home from my time away, my summer at the island so to speak, I received lots of congratulatory messages like "Time to celebrate" and "You must be so relieved" and so on. Well no, it's not like that. It certainly was in many ways a huge relief to come home seeing Leon first and foremost. Also privacy, fresh food, nature, dental floss, being able to shave my armpits and so on. But what was there to celebrate? My life's work and the hard work of so many good people is gone.
So many people I care about were hurt financially and otherwise. I'm humiliated and still somewhat confused. Along with sad, angry, and more. The debts for which I'm responsible are so big they feel surreal. So the question is, now what? Sarma continues. I was humiliated in ways that no one knows except the person who was behind those humiliations. For example, and now you'll know one of the ways...
There were a handful of people out there who, just after my disappearance, received emails from me. Except they weren't from me, and I did not know they existed until I was finally back and out on bail and hacked back into my Gmail, which I'd not been able to access for the prior year. Looking in the sent folder and reading what was contained therein was among the more mortifying moments of all this. There were very likely a lot of texts too that were not from me, but I never did get my phone back and so we'll never know, at least from my end, what they said.
If you received correspondence from me after around, I think, very early June of 2015 until before I came home post-arrest, well, that was not me. So, given everything that happened, it feels a bit lame reaching out to these people and trying to explain that wasn't me. I worry they won't believe me. I worry I sound crazy. I worry no one wants anything to do with me anymore. I worry I'll never be able to explain. But I need to. I don't know what will happen now.
But I'm focusing on being grateful and working my way towards repairing things and taking more steps forward than back. Getting up and out more than down and in. Can I believe that I can somehow get out from under this and not only repay debts but rebuild something big? It's not easy but I'm going to try to choose to believe that it may happen, magical or not. Fuck it. I believe in love.
Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka The Former, aka The Raw Dog. Special thanks to Netflix and their new docuseries Bad Vegan, which is streaming now.
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