SARMA Melngailis made headlines in 2015 when both of her New York City-based restaurants closed after staff walked out over unpaid wages.
In 2016, Melngailis and her ex-husband were then arrested for fraud, and their story is now scheduled to be the plot of a new Peacock series called Pure.
Pure was confirmed on April 13, 2022, however, an exact premiere date has not been released.
The show is based on the Netflix docuseries Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives, which was released in 2022, and the Vanity Fair article, The Runaway Vegan, by Allen Salkin, which explores the rise and fall of Melngailis’ relationship with Anthony Strangis.
“Two people who fulfilled each other’s desires to live in a world that existed outside of reality—which ultimately destroyed them,” the show’s description reads, via E! News. “A tragic, twisted love story, doomed from the start.”
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Like the release date, the cast is also expected to be released at a later time.
Heather Regnier will serve as the writer of the series while Lynn Harris and Matti Leshem are set to produce, according to E!.
Salkin is also scheduled to serve as a consulting producer.
The show will be released through Weimaraner Republic Pictures, a film and TV company that was founded by Harris and Leshem in 2014.
Weimaraner Republic has credits that include, The Shallows, King Richard, and the upcoming Disney+ movie, Hocus Pocus 2, according to Deadline.
Melnhailis, 49, is known as an American chef and businesswoman, while her ex-husband is known as a career criminal.
In 2017, Melngailis pleaded guilty to theft and fraud charges and ultimately spent four months behind bars, according to New York Daily News.
Upon release, she filed for divorce and has lived a quiet life, however, she told the New York Post in 2019 that she hopes to open a restaurant again someday.
“If there was some magical opportunity to open the same restaurant in the same place, I would do it in a heartbeat,” she told the media outlet. “I think New York would take me back.”
As for Strangis, he pleaded guilty to four counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree and was sentenced to five years probation in March 2017, according to the New York Post.
He has since put the ordeal behind him and has moved on with his life, according to his attorney, Sam Karliner.
“He’s gone on to live his life,” Karliner said in a statement to E! News in March 2022. “He’s got a job, uses his name, this is behind him and she’s behind him.”
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Karliner later went on to add that moving on was part of the reason he did not participate in the Netflix series.
“He pled guilty to it, he owned up to it and he did it long before Sarma did,” Karliner continued. “His case was resolved probably close to a year before Sarma’s was.”
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