Ask a good vegan and I’m not sure which they would say is worse – being caught stealing around $2 million (R31 million) or being caught ordering pizza and chicken wings.

One thing is for sure though, they would certainly have plenty to say about it.

Anyway we’re talking about Sarma Melngailis, the woman that the New York Post dubbed the city’s ‘hottest vegan’:

[She] had it all: an Ivy League degree, model looks and a hot vegan restaurant, Pure Food and Wine in Gramercy, beloved by Alec Baldwin and Bill Clinton.

That’s ‘had’ as in past tense, because she’s now landed herself behind bars after a series of terrible life decisions:

For the past 10 months, Melngailis and [husband] Strangis had been on the lam after allegedly stealing nearly $2 million from her trendy “raw organic” restaurant — blowing $1.2 million at Connecticut casinos. The 43-year-old restaurateur and Strangis, 35, were arrested last week at a $99-a-night Fairfield Inn & Suites in Sevierville, Tenn., after a delivery of unorganic Domino’s outed them.

Sevierville Detective Kevin Bush tells The Post: “I have excellent intelligence that [Strangis] ordered the pizza and wings.”

Shock, horror, she was stuffing her face with food fit for the devil. Her employees might think that’s an appropriate diet, around 20 of whom gathered to watch her get locked away:

“She’s the vegan Bernie Madoff,” says Benjamin Dictor, attorney for a group of ex-Pure workers. According to the indictment, 84 of them are owed a collective $40,000.

“I love my workers,” pleads a gray jumpsuit-clad Melngailis from her cell. “When I come out, I will find something to do and pay it back.”

And things aren’t looking so lekker when it comes to life behind bars either:

When Melngailis asked for a vegan diet at Rikers, her request was denied. She says she makes do with peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, apples and fresh-sliced cucumber.

How the mighty have fallen.

[source:nypost]