Rescuing our feathered friends
Celebrity vegan chef Sarma stole $2 million and went on the run before police swooped in
Amid the devastating floods that hit Australia, a heartwarming image surfaced of a kayak full of chickens hitching a lift to dry ground.
Queensland egg farmer Gordon McWilliam, 56, still can’t believe that almost all 2000 of his free-range chooks survived thanks to his quickthinking neighbours.
“I was shocked how fast the water came up – I’m normally a pretty levelheaded fella, but I froze, fearing the worst and wondering how I was going to get them all to safety,” the dad-of-two tells Woman’s Day from his farm in Mary Valley, near Noosa.
“Steve and Karen, who live in the property next door, turned up and snapped me back into action – and so began one of the biggest rescue missions ever! They would’ve surely drowned.
“It was a race against time and we had to get them out before dark. Steve took a few loads on the kayak and the rest on top of the tractor. We saved just about all of them – and for those we lost, they know we did our best.”
Completely stranded, without supplies, the farmer will never forget the moment he
heard an emergency services helicopter hovering above his home.
“It was like a scene from a movie
– a huge bundle of food and essentials dropped from the skies. What heroes they are! But the loss of human and animal life is unimaginable. My two daughters, Emily [17] and Zoe [14], reckon I’m an old softie because I love animals and hate to see them suffer.
“Fortunately, our home was spared and I have a warm bed to sleep in – unlike so many who are now homeless. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my neighbours and without the kindness of strangers who came to our rescue. They do breed us tough around here, but it’s still OK to shed a tear or two for those who’ve lost everything.”
Sarma Melngailis was once the New York darling of the raw food restaurant scene, dubbed the Queen of Vegan Cuisine. Alec Baldwin, Anne Hathaway and Stevie Wonder were just a few of the celebrities who dined on pickled Persian cucumbers at Sarma’s It restaurant, Pure Food and Wine.
She featured on the cover of a raw foods cookbook, opened three juice bars and launched a brand of snacks that were sold at Whole Foods markets.
But in a bizarre downward spiral, documented in the hotly anticipated four-part Net ix docuseries Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. Sarma’s life gradually imploded after she began dating Anthony Strangis.
In May 2016, four years after they tied the knot and in the ultimate antithesis to all Sarma had been, the couple were arrested in a dingy hotel room surrounded by a distinctly un-vegan Domino’s pizza and a side of chicken wings. ey were on the run after swiping nearly $2 million.
THE BEGINNING
Sarma’s story begins ve years earlier when she met Anthony, an overweight alleged gambling addict, on Twitter in 2011. However, then he was going by the name Shane Fox. e pair struck up an
unlikely relationship, which confused even Anthony’s stepmother Ellie Strangis.
“I don’t know how she got mixed up with Anthony,” Ellie told media afterwards. Her stepson was a convict and had prior arrests for grand theft and impersonating a police o cer. “A woman like her – what did she see in Anthony?”
ey were married in December 2012 and Sarma hired her new husband as a manager for Pure Food and Wine.
But things quickly turned sour when sta weren’t paid and staged a walkout and investors’ money was stolen while Sarma and Anthony were spending wildly on hotels and casinos.
By 2016 the pair had ed New York after swiping nearly $2 million from the business.
TAKING CONTROL
It was hypocritical behaviour one investor called “unbecoming of a vegan”.
Onlookers and friends were ba ed by the turn of events, with a source close to Sarma telling Vanity Fair in 2016 that Anthony allegedly used gaslighting, sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation to control Sarma.
He convinced her she was living through a series of cosmic endurance tests, which he said he had passed years earlier, and that things like Sarma lending him money would be essential to the test. He promised it would end in empowerment beyond her wildest dreams and access to unlimited resources that would help her change the world. And, perhaps most bizarrely, that her rescue dog Leon would also be immortal.
Anthony claimed Leon had been his dog in a former life and they had all been headed towards each other through past lifetimes for a thousand years.
“Sarma lost her mind,” her close friend Porochista Khakpour said. “She really believed that her dog would live forever.”
The couple ran the restaurant and hobnobbed with celebrities.
Anthony refuted all such claims through his lawyer at the time of the court case.
After going on the run and being holed up in a Tennessee hotel for 40 days, the pair were arrested after Anthony used his real name to order Domino’s to their location. e pizza was reportedly not eaten by a still-vegan Sarma.
Separated from her husband in jail, Sarma went on to plead guilty to grand larceny, tax fraud and conspiring to defraud, charges that had a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.
“Imagine suddenly realising, ‘My dog isn’t going to live forever,’” she said afterwards. “I’m not eternally safe, all my dreams and visions that he promised me he’d make happen are not happening, and this colossal mess isn’t all just going to be undone, like he always said it would be. It’s like waking up into a nightmare.”
In June 2017, Sarma was jailed for just three months. Meanwhile, Anthony received one year behind bars with ve years probation for grand larceny. ey were also ordered to pay investors back.
Since Sarma left prison in 2017, she has divorced Anthony and kept a low pro le. Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives is streaming now on Netflix
‘This colossal mess isn’t all just going to be undone’