Where is Sarma Melngailis now? Details explored ahead of Toxic on ID
Investigation Discovery revisits Sarma Melngailis in the fifth episode of its true-crime series Toxic, Surviving Strangis, scheduled for 10 pm ET/PT on Monday, June 9, 2025. The hour follows journalist Elizabeth Chambers as she traces Anthony Strangis’s recent movements and records new commentary from former spouse Sarma Melngailis.
Once a celebrated raw-food entrepreneur, Sarma Melngailis, in 2017, pleaded guilty to charges of grand larceny and tax fraud after reportedly funneling over $1.6 million from Pure Food and Wine to accounts controlled by Strangis, as per a Vanity Fair report dated November 3, 2016.
Following 4 months at Rikers Island, Sarma settled in Harlem, New York, as per her Instagram posts and launched a Patreon for recipes called Sarma Melngailis with 104 posts up until now. She also began drafting a memoir while repaying staff wages with proceeds from Netflix’s Bad Vegan.
Sarma Melngailis has also confirmed on her Patreon that her nearly 200,000-word memoir, The Girl With the Duck Tattoo, has completed final edits. It will be self-published in June 2025.
As per a People report dated March 11, 2024, she shared that she was diagnosed with autism in 2024. According to multiple sources, Sarma is attempting to revive her restaurant. She also promotes coercive-control awareness, an effort highlighted ahead of her appearance on Toxic.
Sarma Melngailis calls the ending of Bad Vegan "disturbingly misleading"
Netflix’s Bad Vegan closes with audio of Sarma Melngailis laughing on the phone with ex-husband Anthony Strangis. Melngailis later wrote on her blog site, Sarma Raw, about the clip, claiming:
"It implied that I’m on friendly terms with that monster, and worse, that I would be laughing with him about everything.”
She alleged that the call had initially been staged for the filmmakers as part of her effort to document his alleged coercive behaviour. She further claimed:
"I’ve called the ending of Bad Vegan "disturbingly misleading." I’ve written all of these words here to show how and why it’s misleading."
Timeline of the case and allegations
Sarma Melngailis gained widespread recognition with Pure Food & Wine, a raw-food destination which quickly became a celebrity hotspot and had annual revenues of roughly $7 million. Vanity Fair report dated April 14, 2022, later traced the restaurant’s collapse back to 2011.
After she met Anthony Strangis on Twitter, by 2014, more than $1.6 million had reportedly been transferred from company accounts to her personal account. Much of this amount was gambled away by Strangis.
In addition to failing to remit approximately $400,000 in sales tax, resulting in criminal tax fraud, she was also charged with misleading investors, employees, and landlords. This led to unpaid wages, financial losses for investors, and outstanding tax liabilities.
In 2016, the pair was arrested in Tennessee after almost a year on the run. Finally, in 2017, Melngailis pleaded guilty to grand larceny, tax fraud, and a scheme to defraud, serving 4 months at Rikers Island, while Strangis served a year.
During filming, she provided producers with journals, e-mails, and taped calls that she claimed demonstrated "coercive control." She described it as a dynamic in which she wired him money in exchange for promises that included making her dog Leon immortal. However, none of that, she alleged, was fully explained in the series.
Memoir, restitution efforts and new Toxic focus
In her Patreon for the 200-thousand-word memoir, The Girl With the Duck Tattoo, Sarma Melngailis emphasized her need to retain ownership and fund ongoing debt repayments. As per her Patreon, she notes:
"But I'm reassured by the fact that the one comment I keep getting from early readers of the draft is that it's hard to stop reading, so there's that."
Her story will also return to cable on Investigation Discovery. The fifth installment of Toxic, Surviving Strangis, will premiere at 10 pm ET on June 9, 2025. It follows reporter Elizabeth as she tracks new allegations that Strangis is targeting further victims.
Stay tuned for more updates.
