The Truth About Netflix's ＂Bad Vegan＂ and a Crime Week Con, with Sarma Melngailis ｜ Ep. 1221
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 6 minutes
Words per Minute
182.07533
Summary
Sarma Melngilis built one of the most successful vegan food empires in the Big Apple. But her dramatic rise and fall would become the focus of the hit Netflix documentary, The Girl with the Duck Tattoo. In it, she aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story behind the fame, the manipulation, and the fallout of her unbelievable saga.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and Happy New Year.
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It's the final day of Crime Week here on the program,
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though we do have fresh programming for you tomorrow as well.
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This is the end of Crime Week because nothing says Christmas like true crime.
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My guest today built one of the most successful vegan food empires in the Big Apple.
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But her dramatic rise and fall would become the focus of the hit Netflix, quote,
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documentary, or so they call it, Bad Vegan, a series she says got major parts of her story wrong.
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In it, she aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story behind the fame,
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the manipulation, and the fallout of her unbelievable saga.
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Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
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Well, I'm sorry that you had an unfortunate experience with Netflix, but you are not alone.
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We've covered so many of these cases on Netflix where they lure you in,
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and they really do sell a documentary, and it's nothing of the kind.
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It's something that is not committed to journalistic, fact-based reporting.
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But I'm super interested to find out what is true.
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To give a two-line encapsulation of your story to the audience, as I understand it,
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Then you went to the French Culinary Institute.
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You open up this banger of a restaurant with raw food, pure food and wine.
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And then you met this man, this man who came into your life who was somewhat sketchy.
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And notwithstanding your sophistication, bit by bit, he eroded your sense of self,
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And before you knew it, you had lost everything.
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Is that a fair summation of how this thing went down?
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That was better than I can do it in a concise way.
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And what I've learned is that my story was an extreme version of something that happens
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And I know this now from all the messages I've gotten in my DMs since the show came out
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and since it became much more public, is that this type of manipulation can happen a lot
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And so part of my telling of the story is to, you know, is to really help educate people
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And that was the most important part that the show on Netflix left out and that the filmmakers
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left out is any explanation of how this happens, which is what would allow people to help protect
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And which is so unsatisfying because what's most interesting about the story to many of
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us is how someone as sophisticated and well-educated and successful as you would fall for this guy's
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Because in our heads, we want to say, oh, I would never.
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But I mean, I have covered enough of these stories to know don't ever say that because nine times
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out of 10, the person being targeted has a bio not unlike yours.
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For some reason, these con men go for the sophisticated smart types.
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You know, they actually need somebody who's got a certain level of intelligence because it's
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almost like you can't train a, you know, you need somebody who's got a certain level of
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intelligence to be able to pull off this long, slow manipulation.
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And I mean, I've spoken to people who have PhDs in clinical psychology, attorneys even, who've
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been, had their world turned upside down in a way that they never expected.
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And so, again, that's what I write about in my book is really taking the reader along with me
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through this sort of nightmarish journey about getting manipulated over time and really
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trying to, you know, as honestly as I could, even in places where I felt it didn't reflect
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well on me, to help people understand how this happens and also the psychology behind
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And that's really also what was left out of the show.
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Have you ever heard the story of, I'm going to mess up, is it Anderson Benita is her first
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name, NBC journalist who got lured in by this doctor who said he had figured out a way to
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do prosthetic, uh, Benita Alexander, uh, to do prosthetic, uh, tracheas on people.
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And long story short, he was a big fraud and he convinced her that they were going to go
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and be married in Rome by the Pope, even though she was divorced.
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You can't find more cynical mofos than news producers.
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And she got lured in and, and what she said at the end, Sarma is something that you, of
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our interview, you might relate to, which was, cause she's also very smart.
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He needed her to be smart because that's where the Jones came from.
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Like it wasn't going to be fun for him if she were too easy a mark.
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I mean, part of what I think part of why this can happen is because certainly, you know,
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whether it's my wiring or whatever it is, but I almost couldn't, it's like, I couldn't
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fathom that somebody could be so diabolical and also his motivation.
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It wasn't that clear because, you know, it's not like in the end of this, he walked away
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And the point for him was the thrill that he and people like this get from the takedown,
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you know, because again, I'm not a psychologist, but when you're wired a certain way and you
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don't have empathy and you go around in this world, it's like life is a game.
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And to manipulate people is, I think what gives people like this a rise.
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And so, you know, again, the bigger, the takedown, the bigger, the high they get, I suppose.
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I want people to remember Benita, again, a hard-nosed NBC journalist who was doing
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journalism at the, you know, the toughest levels he can, who was convinced by this fraudster
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that the Pope was going to marry them in the Vatican, notwithstanding the fact that she was
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divorced and that Bill Clinton was going to go and Barack Obama was going to go.
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And the only reason she found out it was all a lie is a friend at NBC was like, Benita,
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He's not going to, even the Pope's not even going to be in Rome on the date of your wedding.
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And the, and sort of the, the mask finally started coming off and she started realizing
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So the point is simply while the lies may sound so obviously outrageous to those of us on the
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outside, these fraudsters build slowly to gain your trust and control over you before they
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really start with the huge whoppers to where, you know, you're really believing what looks
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But when you're in it, you're so far removed from your original self, it's, it can happen.
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So, okay, let's talk about how it happened to you.
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So you're, you did the corporate stuff using your Wharton degree.
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And then like everybody, you decided you hated that.
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You go to a culinary school, you open up this raw restaurant and it's a hit.
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Yeah, it opened in 2004 and, um, it was a beautiful restaurant.
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What I was so proud of is that it wasn't a restaurant for, you know, it was a raw vegan
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And, you know, the, the food that we made now, I realize kind of how ahead of its time it was
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because this was 15 years ago and it really was about clean ingredients.
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So, you know, and, and there were no, you know, 15 years ago, there were no seed oil.
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So it was really about, uh, showing people how incredibly good, really, truly clean, nutritionally
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dense food can be not just in the restaurant, but through the brand one lucky duck where
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we had products that were sold through whole foods and kids love them, which meant a lot
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So, um, you know, and, and this was my whole life's purpose.
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It wasn't like, I just started a business and wanted to make money.
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This was my life's purpose was hopefully being able to have a positive impact.
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And, you know, it was a beloved restaurant because people came there and there was, you
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know, it was very important to me that there was zero judgment.
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So half the staff or more probably weren't vegan.
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Most of our, you know, half our customers, it wasn't like that.
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There was no, you know, we weren't like annoyingly dogmatic about it.
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It was just sort of showing people how good this can be.
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And I had all these opportunities to expand and take it global and open in other locations,
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but I was running it on my own in a way and very overwhelmed.
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And I now understand more about my psychological wiring too, that, um, you know, I just, I always
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needed a trusted partner to help me grow the business and I didn't have that.
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And I was overwhelmed and then also went through a painful breakup and was at a particularly
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vulnerable, vulnerable moment when this man slid into my DMs.
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They know how to exploit women who are down and it can go the other way too, but it's in
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this case, it's a man taking advantage of a woman.
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You're just out of a relationship that didn't work out.
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You're growing your business, but that's tough.
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And, uh, but it's succeeding and there's a little bit of this.
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I'm going to show some Netflix clips because it's just interesting how they documented some
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of the, we can see the B-roll of the restaurant and so on.
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Let's take a look at SOT 51, which is about the beginning of your career.
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My undergrad major was economics and I feel like I got there by process of elimination.
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I think what happened is when I was there, it was like, what is everybody else doing?
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Everybody's gunning to go work in investment banking.
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Somebody that I'd worked with said to me, do you really like this work?
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People that I worked with had subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal and I had a subscription
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At that time, I wasn't under any pressure to get a job financially.
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I finished at the French Culinary Institute in 99 and then focused on working in food.
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Um, well, that clip I didn't have any issues with.
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It was the parts that I had issues with were mostly what they left out of the series,
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including any explanation of the psychology of it.
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And, uh, and then they misused a call at the end and they, they moved, they actually moved
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So the audience isn't ready for that yet, but we will definitely get there.
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So there you are, you're making the restaurant.
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The documentary requires attention to the fact that Tom Brady, Giselle, uh, Alec Baldwin
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came in and actually wound up hitting on you, but you weren't really in a place where you
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This is before Hilaria, or at least was like, there was some sort of a vibe going there.
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It was potentially an option, but it didn't happen.
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I mean, he's got his own issues, but they're not quite as bad as the one you, the man you
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Um, so then enters the guy who is kind of the other star.
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Of the Netflix documentary who was going by Shane Fox, um, but actually has a different
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No, uh, his name, his name was Anthony Strangeless.
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He's changed it to Anthony Knight, which I always point out just because if anybody out there
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comes across a dude that, a very large dude, uh, named Anthony Knight, he's, he legally
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Uh, well, he said his name was Shane Fox and I met him through Alec Baldwin through our Twitter
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conversations, which is part of why, you know, I write about Alec in my book and our relationship.
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And then how, oddly enough, I met, it was just through DMs and Twitter.
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And I think that this guy just got lucky enough that he got there early.
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And so Alec followed him back, which in a way gave him at least some kind of a credit
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credibility that made him a little bit more, I don't know, legit.
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So I wasn't quite as suspicious as I, as I might've been otherwise.
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And that's something that people like this always look for is any kind of sort of validation
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And how, how did he explain to you that his name wasn't Shane Fox?
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Um, well that came out later, but you know, he crafted this whole sort of persona that he,
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you know, worked in these clandestine operations, which of course is the perfect cover if somebody's
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a con artist, because, you know, they have an immediate excuse to not explain anything.
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Um, and so eventually I found out his real name, but when that happened, by the time that
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And, uh, and, and also by that time it was as if, you know, well, of course that's not
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Of course I have to have, you know, different identities because of what I do or whatnot.
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In my case, it wasn't so much love bombing as it was more like validation bombing because
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what this man did, it wasn't that I was so in love with him or it was about some sort
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It was more that he knew he had clocked me as somebody where what meant the most to me
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in the world was this business and what I wanted it to do for the world.
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And, and then at the same time, he figured out what all of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities
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And so what, what people do like this, and I think cult leaders do this as well, is they,
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they present to you your goals and ideals and, and the best version of you and what you
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And, and then somehow attach themselves to it as if the only way to get there is through
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So I would say in my case, it was more of like, I don't know, it was like a validation
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bombing, like sort of overwhelming me with feeling like he recognized and understood
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what I wanted to do and understood all of my hopes and dreams and my frustrations, and
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that he would be able to remove all of those frustrations and enable me to grow my business
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into the business that I wanted it to be without, you know, the influence of sort of unsavory
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investors or, because I was in a position where a lot of people wanted to come help me expand
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the business, but they were not the right people or they were predatory in one way or
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Well, the restaurant industry is, is notoriously sketchy and you don't know who to trust.
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So I can see how it would be difficult to understand, like, is this somebody whose money I want?
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You didn't then know about his criminal history or what he'd done to another woman.
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You're, you know, kind of willfully blind to some of these things about him.
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Many women go through this when they're, you know, first coupling with a man who may be
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But you married him, which was not a good decision.
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Anthony would tell me that that $2 million debt that I'd taken on to buy the restaurant,
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He could just take care of that and make that go away.
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So he would be there with me and help, you know, support me to do all the things that
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You know, I would be protected, at least in one significant way, financially.
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And I remember thinking that would be like some sort of dream come true.
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I remember asking the accountant, would he be able to just give me that money or would
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And he sort of jokingly, but half seriously said, well, you should just marry him and then
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he can give you the money without it being taxable in a taxable situation.
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And very quickly, it was like the next day we went and got the license.
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So it was close to a year that I had known him.
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Yeah, and this was one of the parts where they edit it.
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They, I mean, there was a whole, there was two totally different parts of the interview.
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So it wasn't that the accountant said that, and then 24 hours later, we were married.
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What I had said was that he had later subsequently really pressured me and badgered me to marry
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him saying that I would be protected and it would make everything easier.
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And it was a whole different part of the interview where I, and then I made the point that, so
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And we went to City Hall to get the license, and then 24 hours later, we were married.
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So this wasn't even one of the most egregious examples of where they changed the narrative.
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But this was, it was just one that, in a way, it made me look a bit suspect to the audience
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because it made it seem like I just married him for the money that I thought he had, when
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in reality, it was later on and he really badgered me to marry him for other reasons.
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I write about it in my, in the memoir, how, you know, what he did was always vague.
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And anytime I asked him questions, I would always get vague answers.
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And what he did was drop, you know, he would say things in a very word salad-y way.
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So you get an answer, but it's not a real answer.
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And you're almost left to connect the dots and figure it out on your own.
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And so I know that sounds weird, but that's kind of how he addressed every question that
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So, you know, and again, later on, what he did was almost irrelevant because, you know,
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he spun the delusion to such an extent that, you know, he kind of had me believing that
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there's, you know, parallel realities and nothing is real anyway.
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Um, so yeah, what he did was almost irrelevant.
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So he kind of spun a bunch of bull and, but like how long into the relationship did he
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Because he definitely said he was very, very wealthy and that, you know, you were going
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to be super wealthy too, but the money only ever went one way from you to him.
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So how early on in the relationship did that start?
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Um, it took a while before he ever asked me for money.
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And the first time it was as if it was an emergency, like some last minute thing and there would
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And I, so I, you know, again, I'm the type of person where if you need my help and I can
00:22:41.000
And in retrospect, it was a way of getting me tethered because then he never paid me
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And then, you know, he would, it was another way for him to get me, you know, what, what
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the show didn't cover adequately too, is that this took a really long time and multiple times
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after I first got to know him, I thought, all right, well, this is it, you know, something
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And my gut was telling me something feels off about this guy.
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And so I'd tell myself I'm going to cut off communication or I won't see him again.
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But once he'd borrowed that money, it was like a tether.
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So then he would say, well, I'm going to pay you back.
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So, you know, let me come back and see you this weekend because he didn't live in New
00:23:22.480
So he always, when he came, he was coming from out of town.
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And then he'd do whatever, you know, mind sorcery he did that somehow by the end of the
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Um, and, and over time I just got in deeper and deeper and, you know, he always had these
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ever-changing stories about how he was, he had money, but he didn't have access to it
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When you had given him, I mean, the final number is a lot bigger than this, but when
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you realize you'd given him more than a million dollars, did the light bulb go off?
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Like, was there any point when the numbers got huge that you were like, what am I doing?
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The bigger the numbers got, the more terrifying the whole thing was.
00:24:13.220
And again, part of what these people do is they, they weaponize fear.
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And so, you know, the deeper in the hole I am, the more I need him to get me out or the
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way that he's promising he's going to get me out of it.
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And so it's almost like, you know, it's a terrible analogy because I'm not a gambler,
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but it's like, if you think that if you just keep going, it's all going to be absolved and
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If you just keep going, that's part of how they, you know, he got me trapped is I just,
00:24:47.820
I mean, how, and by that point I couldn't even explain what happened.
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And so if I had walked away from him and gone and ran to somebody and said, look, I need
00:25:03.020
And that's, that's the part that, you know, it, it takes, it almost takes having been
00:25:08.760
through something like this to really understand how it happens.
00:25:12.020
So again, that's, you know, why I'm writing, why I've written this book is to try to help
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people understand so they can hopefully avoid it or potentially recognize if it's happening
00:25:22.680
to somebody that they care about or a loved one and, and be able to help them sooner because
00:25:27.380
people around me knew that something was wrong, but they didn't know what was wrong.
00:25:30.800
I'd love to believe that your book can do that and that this segment can do that.
00:25:36.660
I think people make their own mistakes for all sorts of deep psychological reasons.
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They need to pursue this terrible pattern of choices.
00:25:48.960
It's unfortunate, but maybe, you know, we have a shot.
00:25:51.540
Maybe we'll get one or two who are having to hear us and read the book and feel differently
00:25:58.100
Can you just put some color on how he was reeling you in?
00:26:03.240
You know, like when I talked to Benita, she talked a lot about how this doctor was just
00:26:07.800
over the top with like the rose petals and the gifts.
00:26:12.380
And she had tape of him like, my love, my love.
00:26:15.260
And she thought he was this world-class doctor saving lives with this, you know, brand new breakthrough
00:26:21.420
You know, so you could kind of see how, you know, any young woman to be like, hmm, this
00:26:27.240
He's hanging out with the Clintons and the Obamas, allegedly.
00:26:30.900
But I remain somewhat mystified about what this guy had to recommend him, like how he mind
00:26:40.860
One is that because I met him through Twitter, now X, DMs, there was at least a month or more
00:26:51.060
So he was able to sort of do a number on me before I even met him, which was smart on his
00:26:55.920
Because if I had met him, a lot of things in my intuition might have told me that he
00:27:01.360
But by that time, he'd gotten me sort of hooked on this fantasy.
00:27:06.700
And what he really did was weaponize my ambitions because I really believed in my business and
00:27:15.300
And he effectively love-bombed me with validation and knew what I wanted to hear and saying that
00:27:23.160
he believed in me and that, you know, that my business was so important to helping the
00:27:28.840
world and helping to heal people and helping to change the way people eat.
00:27:33.980
And that's really what got me and making me believe that he would help me be able to realize
00:27:43.300
Forgive me for the psychoanalysis, but when you look back at how you were when you were
00:27:47.640
a little girl, have you, in retrospect, been able to like explain your susceptibility to that
00:27:53.620
kind of, you know, your need for that kind of outside flattery and, I don't know, building
00:28:03.440
I mean, I've done a lot of my own psychoanalysis to try to figure these things out.
00:28:07.760
And I always tell people the most important work that you can do is this deep self-reflection
00:28:13.100
and looking at your childhood and whatever your specific wounds are.
00:28:16.120
Because even if you grew up and had good parents who weren't, you know, abusive or cruel in any
00:28:22.260
way, shape or form, you know, perhaps they're, you know, emotionally unavailable in some way
00:28:29.960
Or, you know, for whatever reason I grew up, you know, I might present a certain way, but
00:28:35.340
I really was also probably deeply insecure in a lot of ways and needed that sort of validation.
00:28:43.320
And then on the other side of the show, one of the things that happened on the other side
00:28:48.240
of this show coming out is that people bombarded me asking me if I'd ever had an autism diagnosis.
00:28:54.260
And I thought, like, that had never occurred to me.
00:28:57.400
And so I went and got an evaluation and ended up getting a diagnosis.
00:29:02.100
It used to be called Asperger's and now they call it Autism 1 for whatever reason.
00:29:07.220
But that's another thing that shed a lot of light on whatever it is about my particular
00:29:12.240
wiring that makes me, you know, that sort of allows for that paradox of being objectively
00:29:20.140
reasonably intelligent, yet also unable to see certain things that other people might
00:29:26.740
It's almost like a social, I don't want to say handicap, but like a social struggle that
00:29:33.000
when you have Asperger's, social does not come easy to you.
00:29:37.660
I mean, and I can, again, and women, I think, are better at masking, so people don't see
00:29:43.920
You know, I can go out there and talk to people and nobody would necessarily think, oh, she
00:29:49.400
But yet certain things, you know, certain things, I don't clock people's intentions as well
00:29:56.900
as other people might, or it takes me a little bit longer sometimes to process things.
00:30:01.400
And I just walk into interactions and have a default setting that I trust people and that
00:30:08.920
I assume that they would operate the way that I would, which is in good faith.
00:30:13.560
And so I just don't see, you know, there's a thing called betrayal blindness.
00:30:22.940
I have the same deficiency in some way, so I can understand.
00:30:26.580
And I mean, I, it, this wasn't an isolated event.
00:30:30.360
There's like that saying, you know, fool me once, shame on you.
00:30:33.880
But for me, it's like, I have to take responsibility for the fact that this has happened to me over
00:30:42.100
And so I really have had to do a lot of deep analysis on understanding the how and the why.
00:30:47.640
I mean, even what happened with the filmmakers, I blindly trusted that they would make an accurate
00:30:53.760
show and that they wouldn't have done something that was on the other side of it, such a betrayal.
00:31:01.280
I mean, they do it all the time over on Netflix, all the time.
00:31:07.080
I mean, in this case, the filmmakers made the show and then sold it to Netflix, but Netflix
00:31:14.740
Like that, they're the ones putting it out there.
00:31:16.560
Like, I'm sick of this because Netflix has done this to so many people.
00:31:22.280
Do not believe the word documentary when Netflix slaps it on any film.
00:31:28.580
I will never believe them when they say documentary, ever, just given what I've seen.
00:31:36.220
Because, near as I can tell, he was taking all this money from you and he was telling
00:31:41.240
you, like, he needed it for an emergency and he talked about, like, there being kind of
00:31:46.820
There's some sort of family that sounded more like an ethereal family, not like a mob family,
00:31:51.420
not like a family of origin, but like some, quote, family that was evaluating you and you
00:31:57.160
And this was after he had ratcheted up the trust factor.
00:32:03.160
But eventually, he got you believing that your sweet dog, Leon, a pit who you adopted, who
00:32:12.140
was absolutely beautiful and very sweet and who you were in love with, that he could somehow
00:32:27.980
What eventually happens is that Anthony promises her that if she just followed along with the
00:32:34.100
program he was suggesting, kept going along with what was instructed, he is going to make
00:32:39.060
both Sarma and her dog immortal, just like Anthony is.
00:32:49.760
And he's already in this special ethereal world because he's passed through the tests into
00:32:58.760
It's like some fantastical, magical future where my dog is going to live forever.
00:33:05.720
And like this reality didn't really matter because it would all be reset to some sort
00:33:10.760
of utopia, his happily ever after that he always referred to.
00:33:18.120
Now, when people watching this say, oh, come on, right?
00:33:22.840
Everyone knows there's no such thing as immortality.
00:33:26.300
Well, what I would say is that, you know, I think unless you've been through it, the effects
00:33:34.320
of things like cognitive dissonance and over time, a ratcheting up level of dissociation,
00:33:41.600
it's not that I believed things he told me necessarily, but they were things that you
00:33:54.780
And again, he had gotten me in so deep that I didn't see a way out.
00:33:59.440
And so you start to cling to whatever solutions and fantasy that they operate you because by
00:34:06.880
So again, it wasn't so overt that he said, you know, Leon's going to live forever, my dog.
00:34:16.060
And I think that the more afraid I got, the more I dissociated and wanted to believe that
00:34:21.540
none of this was real because I was in so deep financially.
00:34:24.980
I mean, the most painful part is that this wasn't my money.
00:34:28.920
It's not like I had this money saved and he got it.
00:34:31.500
That would have been, you know, for me, comparatively, that would have been great if that was the
00:34:36.760
The most painful part is that this was money that came from the business, which ended up
00:34:43.040
And, you know, all of these other people that were hurt through me was the most painful,
00:34:54.880
You were not the only one who would go down as a result of all this.
00:34:58.120
And as I understand it, the company closed twice, not one, but twice.
00:35:02.520
One time because of all the money he sold, then you reopened.
00:35:12.640
So when he took me away from the city, I mean, when I was arrested a year, almost a year
00:35:18.680
later, nine months later, if you had told me that people had stepped in and the restaurant
00:35:22.580
was still running, I would have, I would have been relieved.
00:35:26.400
But the point is that the entire time that I was away, I never Googled what happened or
00:35:31.900
whether or not the restaurant had closed or what happened after I left.
00:35:37.820
And, you know, again, that's something I go into detail and in the book so people can
00:35:44.480
Because eventually as, and by the way, we should cover this.
00:35:49.380
Do we believe that he was taking all those, you know, 10,000, 100,000, $14,000 checks you
00:35:54.640
were sending him and eventually your mom was sending him and just gambling it?
00:35:59.120
Um, I believe so again, because I think people like him, it's not about the money.
00:36:06.260
It would all make much more sense if he had been stashing the money somewhere and, you
00:36:12.220
know, and then had just dumped me and gotten on a plane and, you know, traveled, left the
00:36:17.700
Um, I, again, I think the point was the takedown and in some ways it almost feels like the point
00:36:24.960
was to destroy me, to absolutely obliterate me and to, you know, beyond just the financial
00:36:31.920
side of it, but it's almost as if he wanted me to be so utterly humiliated and broken and
00:36:37.920
to have burned all of my bridges so that any chance for me to recover and come back and
00:36:42.760
rebuild would be, you know, as small as possible.
00:36:46.020
And I'm, I'm still trying to do that, but he made sure it would be as difficult as humanly
00:36:52.900
Because not only did he destroy your business, but he destroyed your reputation and no, no
00:37:00.560
You say this in the documentary now and employees are going to have a, a care or two about taking
00:37:07.760
a job with you, given what happened with your employees.
00:37:10.240
I know you want to add something about, I guess, did you pay the employees back their, their
00:37:19.520
I, I said, I just wanted enough money to repay my employees.
00:37:22.880
So as a condition of participating, I got the amount of money that the employees were owed,
00:37:30.940
And all of it went to them because that's the part that weighed on me the heaviest, because,
00:37:35.000
you know, of course that they're not getting paid is more significant than, you know, maybe
00:37:40.580
a wealthy investor being out some of their money.
00:37:42.740
I mean, that weighs on me as well, but what happened with my employees weighed the heaviest.
00:37:46.840
And, um, you know, all of those people that work there, the ones who are available want
00:37:52.740
If I can reopen, you know, I'm, I'm in contact with all of them.
00:37:56.540
Um, yeah, cause they knew, I mean, the people that work there and the people who were long
00:38:01.480
time customers of the brand, they knew me, they knew that whatever happened, they knew
00:38:06.440
something really crazy happened, but they knew that I would never, ever, ever hurt that business
00:38:14.780
I would have sacrificed myself for them and for that business.
00:38:21.740
So then eventually this, this, I am still unclear.
00:38:27.920
Even having watched the show, this guy gets you to go kind of on, on the run with him.
00:38:36.920
You guys are down in like Tennessee for some of it by Dollywood, you changed your name.
00:38:44.060
Well, not legally, but you started to go by Emma instead of Sarma.
00:38:50.080
You covered up your tattoo that had the name of your secondary restaurant on it.
00:38:59.480
No, I had no idea that I was, that, you know, I was being sought after.
00:39:06.580
And at the time I wouldn't have even, you know, of course the, what, what happened with
00:39:11.520
the money was incredibly unfortunate, but I would have thought it's more of a civil matter,
00:39:16.180
not criminal because, you know, again, you think that to, to be a criminal, you have to
00:39:22.900
And I had the opposite of criminal intent in this situation.
00:39:27.460
And so I didn't think that, you know, I, I wasn't aware of being sought after by, um,
00:39:35.500
by the police, but what I write about in my book and what really didn't come through is
00:39:40.060
that by the time he took me away, I was so broken that there's a scene where he drives
00:39:50.140
And by scene, I mean, I write about this part in the book because it's almost the last memory
00:39:56.740
And when he tells me we're driving away, I was screaming my head off, which is very unlike
00:40:01.440
me, but like almost like a wild animal, just screaming.
00:40:09.300
And it's as if that was the moment when I just slid into a deep, deep level of dissociation.
00:40:23.260
And so if you saw me during that time, I could function, I could, you know, talk to a barista
00:40:34.220
And, um, that's the part that, again, it's really hard to know how that might feel unless
00:40:40.420
And so to answer the question, what I was, what was I thinking or what was I feeling?
00:40:43.840
I wasn't thinking and I wasn't feeling it's like, that's what dissociation is.
00:40:50.300
So you're just like a, almost like a zombie on autopilot.
00:40:54.280
And then the really gut wrenching part is when I get, when I finally was arrested and
00:40:58.980
I write in my book that it took up getting arrested to set me free.
00:41:02.620
You know, I have warm, fuzzy feelings for the detective who arrested me, who's a lovely
00:41:09.700
Um, the prosecutors in New York, different story, but the detective who arrested me,
00:41:13.800
he recognized the dynamics of what was going on.
00:41:16.320
And then once I was arrested, it was the slow process of waking back up into a level of
00:41:25.160
sanity and, and coming back into the real world.
00:41:32.400
You know, it's like once the horse is broke, it does stop bucking.
00:41:41.380
Or like the elephant that, you know, they don't realize that they've been set free.
00:41:45.920
They've just been so trained to walk in this one area that they don't, or they don't realize
00:41:51.140
You know, it is, it is like breaking an animal in that way.
00:41:53.980
So what did, what was he getting out of having you in this condition and just with him during
00:42:05.660
Now I know your mom started to get, he started to hit her up for dough and she did it because
00:42:13.600
In other words, once like you were kind of bankrupt and you know, there's nothing,
00:42:18.880
Like you would think that by that point, he would have just, I mean, he could have just
00:42:24.320
dumped me somewhere and he could have gone on a plane and left the country and, and nobody
00:42:29.780
would have ever probably gone after him, but he didn't.
00:42:33.920
And so, you know, I don't, I don't know the answer to that question.
00:42:36.780
I do know that he was, you know, when he took me away, he then also took full control.
00:42:43.100
He had access before, but he took full control of my phone, my devices, my email.
00:42:47.500
So I was unaware of him using my phone to text people and using my email to reach out to
00:42:54.840
people and ask for money, which is incredibly humiliating when I eventually got back into
00:43:00.540
my email, you know, nine months later, however long it was.
00:43:05.160
So he was still able to get some money out of people through me.
00:43:08.900
And I think that in the end, he realized that somehow the game was over.
00:43:14.980
And I can't really explain this, but I think he, it's almost as if I think he might've gotten
00:43:21.020
us arrested intentionally, which I know seems like it doesn't make any sense.
00:43:24.780
But I, my gut tells me that that's what happened because he said to me either the day before
00:43:29.880
or even that morning, he said to me, there's going to be one more gut shot.
00:43:34.300
And I was terrified because I didn't know what he meant by that.
00:43:38.080
But he, it's as if he was telling me, you're going to have to endure one more really painful
00:43:45.720
And then boom, you know, we were arrested and, you know, which reminds me of speaking
00:43:52.720
There's a whole sexual abuse component of this story that they asked me about.
00:43:56.840
And I spoke about in my very long interviews for the, for the series, but they left it out,
00:44:05.500
I didn't understand it at first, but I think had they left it in, then the audience would
00:44:09.660
have sympathized me with, to the extent that they wouldn't have able to create sort of a
00:44:14.920
twisty ending and cast doubt on whether or not I was complicit.
00:44:21.960
Um, well, I think that you might've spoken to people in the NXIVM cult in the past on your
00:44:31.260
And so a similar thing happened with Keith Raynery and, you know, they create this dynamic
00:44:37.660
where it's almost as if they make you believe that the sexual stuff is necessary and something
00:44:46.120
It's really twisted and hard to explain, but I, I go into sort of grotesque detail in
00:44:51.660
a chapter in my book about, about what he did, because, you know, I was so repulsed by
00:44:58.420
This is another thing that people didn't understand.
00:45:00.820
And that didn't come through in the story is I was so repulsed by him.
00:45:04.040
The last thing in the world I want to do is have sex with this guy who, by the way,
00:45:08.020
which point, by what point were you repulsed by him?
00:45:11.180
Um, I mean, it happened over time, but it was reasonably at some, you know, certainly
00:45:18.020
when we got married, it wasn't like we were a married couple and having sex.
00:45:21.740
By that point, I'm sure I had stopped wanting to have sex with him.
00:45:25.360
And I don't, I think that happened pretty quickly, but he, you know, so eventually it was something
00:45:31.620
that he started to force me to do in a really disgusting, manipulative, cruel way.
00:45:37.760
And it was, um, you know, I mean, it was incredibly painful, but it's something that cult leaders
00:45:44.840
And I think it's another, it's like another, forgive me, I haven't read the book.
00:45:49.580
I only saw the documentary, so I wasn't aware of that.
00:45:54.300
Like what, what, what was so awful about, I mean, I accept that sexual abuse is awful,
00:45:58.620
but if you could just help us understand what you're talking about.
00:46:00.400
Yeah, well, um, you know, he basically told me that I had to do things.
00:46:08.120
I mean, there's a, there's a chapter in my book that goes into some gross detail about
00:46:12.560
this, where I come home, you know, I'm exhausted working my ass off, getting the restaurant reopened
00:46:19.340
after it closed because of, you know, the actions that he put me through.
00:46:22.700
And I miraculously raised money, got the restaurant reopened, I'm exhausted.
00:46:27.500
And I think that he felt me pulling away a bit where maybe I sensed at that point, I could
00:46:34.220
And so he needed a way to exert even more dominance over me.
00:46:38.540
And so, you know, there's, he told me to bring a bottle of wine home from the restaurant
00:46:44.260
And I didn't know why, because, um, he didn't drink a lot and he wanted me to drink because
00:46:50.460
he told me that he was going to have to force me to do stuff and it was for my own good.
00:46:55.460
And, you know, he had this whole long explanation, which I don't even necessarily recall.
00:47:00.140
But by that point, it was, you know, he had created this dynamic where I have to do what
00:47:06.780
Otherwise there's going to be horrible consequences.
00:47:09.860
You know, again, what, what, what, what didn't come through in the show and what people don't
00:47:16.860
There is so much fear that you feel like you have to do what these people tell you to do.
00:47:22.700
So it's as if he, it's as if somebody said, I'm going to have to, uh, you know, I don't
00:47:32.100
I feel like sometimes if you use the, the R word, it's screws with the TV, but it's like
00:47:37.800
somebody says, I'm going to have to now sexually abuse you when you have to let you have to let
00:47:47.340
Did you get a response to that allegation when you published the book from him?
00:47:52.460
Uh, I mean, I haven't gotten any response from, I can't even imagine he's, he's off doing
00:48:00.140
There was a show called toxic that was on discovery HBO, um, that I, I ended up, I didn't want to
00:48:06.160
participate at first, but I did participate once I learned that they were trying to track
00:48:09.700
him down and figure out where he is to potentially hold him accountable.
00:48:13.140
Because at that point we knew that he was doing this to other people.
00:48:17.300
And so they do track him down and he is doing what he did to me, to somebody else.
00:48:26.300
We do not have the proof of that as an independent broadcaster, either of the sexual abuse or
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He's already been to prison, because at the end of this 9, 10-month stint in Tennessee,
00:50:51.860
It made headlines that it was after ordering Domino's.
00:50:56.220
I mean, the short form of this, as I recall, was like, she's not even a vegan.
00:51:01.420
They ordered chicken wings and a pizza from Domino's.
00:51:13.200
And I'll point out that even the lovely detectives who arrested me, who, again, I feel very warmly
00:51:18.560
towards, they pointed out to tabloids that were calling him that I was in a different
00:51:30.260
And so, you know, even knowing that information, it's sort of too juicy a headline for tabloids to
00:51:35.560
claim that, you know, this New York City vegan was arrested because of a pizza.
00:51:41.260
Again, I didn't even know that a pizza existed until a girl in jail when I was in the holding
00:51:52.020
She came into the holding cell after me and said, ain't you that girl that was on TV?
00:51:56.760
You know, you got arrested because of the pizza.
00:52:01.920
So, again, that was just a way that the tabloids want to make a story juicier for attention.
00:52:09.180
Some of the abuse, not sexual but verbal, is captured in the Netflix film.
00:52:14.580
We have some of the language he used over the phone with you captured in the following
00:52:30.960
I already gave you the fucking hundred K on top of everything else.
00:52:35.040
I thought you were going along with everything.
00:53:10.420
If I tell you to take all your money out of the bank and light it on fire, do it.
00:53:23.680
So hearing his voice and yeah, I mean, I have like goosebumps right now.
00:53:30.080
I think these people have a certain power that's really hard to understand.
00:53:37.200
There's something about it where it's like they get you under a spell.
00:53:40.880
And in my case, another paradoxical element about this whole situation is that I kept pushing back on him.
00:53:48.560
And yet he'd end up dragging me in and overpowering me over and over again.
00:53:52.200
Yeah, he was not intimidated by your pushback at all.
00:53:55.240
And by the way, there's an ex-wife in the documentary or whatever we're calling it on Netflix who says he did this to her too, except she had a baby.
00:54:05.580
And she claims in the film that he said to her, you know, if you give a baby salt, it will die and it won't be detectable in an autopsy.
00:54:15.660
And she said, I never let him be alone with the baby after that.
00:54:18.980
I mean, like, again, we don't know whether that is true.
00:54:23.500
But if so, then this guy's got a dangerous pattern here.
00:54:26.580
And one might argue you should consider yourself lucky to have just escaped with debt, the loss of your business, self-esteem, some anger from employers and investors and a short stint in prison.
00:54:40.440
I mean, honestly, this could be the lucky outcome.
00:54:43.160
I mean, you know, I say this in all seriousness, there were times where I wished that he had killed me because when I came out of the other side of this, the consequences and everything being destroyed, I just felt like, what is there left for me to live for?
00:55:02.060
And he was never held accountable for what he did to me.
00:55:04.560
He spent a year in jail and I ended up having to go serve four months after he was released.
00:55:09.740
So he was out free, clean slate, and I had to go in and do four months.
00:55:21.120
I saw, you know, the ultimate damages were higher than that.
00:55:23.460
But, like, how does he only get a year in jail for that?
00:55:30.440
He was, it's almost like he was an afterthought because the prosecution focused on the business loss.
00:55:39.160
But there was no, he was never charged for what he did to me or to my mother.
00:55:47.020
So I would think that perhaps if it happened now, it might be different.
00:55:51.900
On the other side of, for example, Keith Raniere getting prosecuted for what he did and the way he was able to manipulate people, I think maybe now it would have been different.
00:56:00.720
Or had it been a different prosecutor or just different circumstances?
00:56:04.860
Did he plead guilty to something or was he found guilty of anything?
00:56:12.940
There was never any trial or anything like that.
00:56:15.660
I mean, you know, I think anybody who's been through the criminal justice system knows that pleading guilty is something that people do all the time because it's a better alternative than getting dragged through, you know, a trial that you can't afford or the prospect of the stress of a trial.
00:56:35.460
And, you know, perhaps things not being admitted into evidence and you end up with even more time and not to mention not being able to afford a trial.
00:56:44.440
So, you know, I ended up pleading guilty, which was really painful because however they made it look, I'm a deeply honest person.
00:56:52.860
And so to stand there in court and have to plead guilty to something that I had no intention of ever doing.
00:57:01.020
To, I've almost like blacked it out, but, you know, the words fraud and grand larceny were involved.
00:57:11.320
I mean, I'm like the goody two shoes who never got in trouble in school, you know, respects authority, does the right thing.
00:57:21.360
I had an accountant once who I was talking to about doing our taxes.
00:57:25.500
And he said, well, how many of your employees are on versus off the books?
00:57:30.460
He said, no, no, really tell me how many are on.
00:57:39.320
Well, the thing that's strange about it is normally if you're committing larceny, you take the money and then you get a gain with it.
00:57:49.380
That will help your life or, you know, I don't know, help someone you love.
00:57:53.880
But what happened here was you were taking money that he was demanding and giving it to him, which he appears to have gambled away, which you do not appear to have benefited from at all.
00:58:04.420
In fact, it was at great cost to you and the things that you cared about.
00:58:08.860
Like they don't have some Rolex watch, right, that you got or some penthouse that you got.
00:58:16.920
You weren't taking this money and lining your own pocket with it.
00:58:23.200
And even so, I mean, people know me, know that that kind of stuff doesn't matter to me.
00:58:27.200
What mattered to me was the business and wanting to protect it.
00:58:32.120
So, yeah, I mean, he's the only one who benefited.
00:58:42.740
I know some people are mad at you because they don't believe that you were mind manipulated.
00:58:53.420
And, you know, I at least was lucky enough to recover enough of my communications with him that I have all the backup.
00:59:01.400
You know, it's like I naively thought that with my prosecution, the more evidence they dug up and the more they were able to recover, that it would help me.
00:59:09.860
They recovered a journal of mine where I was writing about what was going on.
00:59:14.320
And when I was given a copy of it, I thought, oh, OK, finally, like this exonerates me because surely they wouldn't think that, you know, nothing logically made sense.
00:59:32.640
He's got a long criminal record of impersonating police officers, like a very extensive criminal record.
00:59:42.280
But I just got very unlucky with the prosecution in my case.
00:59:48.160
So sorry to bring this up, but is Leon still alive?
01:00:02.940
He was a pit bull and he was 14 and a half when he passed away.
01:00:17.840
I mean, obviously, like the deluded version of you chose to believe that maybe he could save your beloved pet forever.
01:00:26.460
And, of course, it's yet another lie that he told you.
01:00:29.380
And so now where where are you and where is he?
01:00:33.320
You think he's still doing this to yet another person because he's out of prison.
01:00:36.580
I would imagine the Netflix film would make that a little tough for him.
01:00:49.680
I was moved back here to New York, which was, you know, where what I always felt was home to reopen the business in the same location.
01:00:57.240
And then what I said before about, you know, I have to take responsibility for somebody that unfortunately makes a good target and is able to be deceived by some dishonest people.
01:01:13.780
And so I've been a bit reeling on how to move forward.
01:01:20.660
And I, you know, one of the things that these people look for in a good target is somebody that won't give up and and will keep going.
01:01:29.920
And that is something about my personality is that I will keep getting up and I will keep going and keep trying and believing in what I wanted to build the first time around.
01:01:39.800
And so I may be able to pull it off for it to happen again.
01:01:43.460
Yeah, well, I mean, if you can earn, if you personally can earn enough money to fund yourself, no one can stop you.
01:01:53.360
I mean, that would be a great outcome here, even if you have to do catering, whatever, like do something to use your skills to earn enough money to open something up, even if it's not in Manhattan.
01:02:07.160
And I think, you know, another going forward now, my my mission always was around food and clean eating and healthy living.
01:02:15.720
But I think also on the other side of this, it's really meaningful to me to be to have my story be as useful as possible through my book and through speaking out about what happened and this type of manipulation that, again, a lot of people don't realize that it could happen to them.
01:02:30.640
And hopefully so that they might also recognize if it's happening to somebody, to a loved one or somebody that they care about and be able to intervene and help prevent somebody going through as extensive as a nightmare as this.
01:02:55.120
He was like kind of played an early role on this.
01:02:57.220
In a way, he was responsible for you meeting this guy.
01:03:03.800
So I mean, it was a weird and I I ended up getting I adopted my dog because of him.
01:03:08.920
And so that's another story that's in the book.
01:03:12.660
And it's not, you know, it's it's a lot of things just need to go right.
01:03:17.520
But for me, it's a matter of finding the right partnership and people that I can trust because, you know, it's not that I necessarily would need somebody else to oversee the money.
01:03:28.460
I need people that are trustworthy and honest and forthright and that I could work collaboratively with and move forward.
01:03:37.140
So that also I think it's not it's not for you that you need somebody to control the finances.
01:03:41.840
It's that anybody who is going to be associated with a restaurant is going to want to see that it's not you controlling the finances.
01:03:51.500
For this next phase out, you know, maybe when you're at this for 10 years and everybody sees you're you're good.
01:03:57.300
But I think that's all part of rebuilding trust and telegraphing to the world that, you know, what happened and you acknowledge it.
01:04:18.020
I think you're you're you can earn money and help give yourself the next big start you need.
01:04:39.100
The book, again, that she mentioned is called The Girl with the Duck Tattoo.
01:04:43.060
And that's where Sarma aims to set the record straight by laying out what she says is the real story.
01:04:49.520
The Megyn Kelly Show reached out to Anthony Strangus for comment regarding the sexual assault allegations made by Sarma.
01:04:58.280
Thank you all for joining me today and all week on Crime Week.
01:05:04.500
As I mentioned, I get so many emails from you all that I wanted to take some time to start this new year by answering your questions.
01:05:12.320
There are some great questions that we're going to go over.
01:05:21.500
I mean, you know, we covered the gamut in this thing.
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So we've got some new content to keep things rolling.
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