Tag: True Crime

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Documentaries True Crime

‘Amy Bradley is Missing’ docuseries filmmaker: ‘I have to believe she’s alive’

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Spoilers for Amy Bradley is Missing


Prior to seeing Netflix’s popular docuseries, Amy Bradley is Missing, I’d heard of the case through the true crime podcast Casefile. There were some key omissions and new information in this docuseries, which I’ll get to in a moment. Amy Bradley, 23, disappeared off a cruise ship to the Caribbean with her family in 1998. She was seen dancing with a crew member on the night before her disappearance and eyewitnesses saw her with him early the next morning. While she may have fallen overboard her body was never recovered and several credible witnesses went on the record with sightings of her over the years. I’ve seen coverage insisting that Amy must have fallen overboard, deliberately or not, but there are too many witnesses and clues suggesting she was trafficked for me to firmly believe that.

The detail which was new to me, and which redditors have said they hadn’t heard before either, is that Amy was gay and specifically that she had just broken up with a girlfriend. In the series, Amy’s ex shared a heartfelt letter that Amy wrote her just before the cruise, wanting to reconcile when she got back. This detail was discussed very reluctantly by Amy’s family, who discounted it and seemingly denied that part of her identity. Amy’s dad had written a mean letter to the ex girlfriend back when Amy was alive, showing how her family did not accept her. Notably, the docuseries left out the fact that Amy’s family was bilked out of about $100,000 by a shady private detective promising to find her. There were three nearly hour-long episodes, there was plenty of time to include this detail. I can only guess that the family didn’t bring it up and that the filmmakers either didn’t ask or respected their wishes not to talk about it.

Filmmakers Phil Lott and Ari Mark spoke with The Hollywood Reporter. They swear that they were objective despite being close to Amy’s family, but I doubt that. Still it was a well edited docuseries that told a cohesive story. Here’s more:

It sounds like you believe she’s alive.


Mark: I got to the point on this show where I became close enough with the people. Of course, we remain objective, and we were objective through the whole process. There are enough reasons to believe all of these things are possible. That’s what makes it compelling. But Brad, [Amy’s] brother, says, “I have to cling to the hope.” He’s like, “I’m not saying it’s definitely this, definitely that — but I have to cling to the hope.”

I’ve kind of gotten to the point where I have to believe she’s alive. And people will judge me for that. You immediately fall into a bucket of, “How could you believe the most far-fetched piece of this?” We’re always so used to calculating odds. “Well, the odds are this happened, and the statistics say …” All of those things are true. But if we’re telling a remarkable story, I think there’s just as much of a chance that there’s a remarkable answer.

Anything you want to add, Phil?


Lott: No, I think that was incredibly well said. When people watch this series, I think you will feel like your preconceptions have been compounded. The easiest thing in the world is to come up to us going, “Clearly, she fell off the boat.” I think we’re as guilty of that coming into this as anyone else. And as you go down the path, and you start answering the first five questions, they all lead to much bigger pieces of mystery. Well, now you have three episodes of that. It’s something that just gets bigger and deeper and more compelling.

Mark: Our job is essentially to call bullshit, right? We go into these things calling bullshit. So as you go, “Ooh maybe we’re wrong,” it’s an evolution. It’s a process.

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

They go on to discuss the photos from the escort site of the woman whose face matched Amy’s using facial recognition software. She was posed in a way that hid Amy’s birthmark and tattoos. Another compelling clue is that visits to the Amy Bradley is Missing website from someone with an IP address from Amy’s presumed location spike around family birthdays and holidays. That person spends much more time on the site than someone with a casual interest. I also found the eyewitnesses very believable. They each seemed convinced they saw Amy. It’s possible she’s alive and is trapped or doesn’t see a way back after all she’s been through. It’s also possible she fell or jumped from the ship early that morning. There are no clear answers as to what happened, which is people are so interested in this case. For all their flaws, Amy’s family has dedicated their lives to finding her and they deserve answers.

photos via Netflix Press

Categories
Crime True Crime

Ghost Adventures star Aaron Goodwin’s wife arrested in murder-for-hire plot

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Ghost Adventures is a paranormal reality TV series that started in 2008 and is currently in its 25th season. It started on the Travel Channel, but is now also streaming on Discovery and Amazon Prime. Basically, it follows a group of ghost hunters made up of lead investigator Zak Bagans, and his team members, Aaron Goodwin, Jay Wasley, and Billy Tolley. Each episode, they investigate a new location that’s been reported to have paranormal activity. They’ve had a couple of celebrity guests throughout the years, like Post Malone, Loretta Lynn and Holly Madison, but it’s generally been a lowkey show with a loyal fan base.

Earlier this week, however, Ghost Adventures made national news when Goodman’s wife, Victoria Goodwin, was arrested in a murder-for-hire plot in Nevada. According to police, she paid a Florida inmate to kill her husband in order to get out of her marriage. Victoria’s been charged with “solicitation to commit murder” as well as “conspiracy to commit murder.”

The wife of Ghost Adventures star Aaron Goodwin, Victoria Goodwin, has been arrested after allegedly conspiring to have him murdered, per police. Victoria, 32, was arrested on March 6 on charges of soliciting to commit murder and conspiring to commit murder, according to inmate records in Clark County, Nevada, obtained by PEOPLE. She was held on $100K bail and was scheduled to make an initial appearance in court on Tuesday, March 11, according to the records.

Police in Florida told TMZ — who first reported the news — that investigators found messages from Victoria to an inmate in a prison in the state about murdering her husband, Aaron. One of her alleged texts read, per the outlet, “Am I a bad person? Because I chose to end his existence. Not divorce.” Victoria has denied plotting to have her husband killed and wanting him dead, police told TMZ.

Police told the outlet that she had provided the location and filming times of Aaron’s hit show. The outlet also reports that, according to police, she had also set aside over $11.5K to pay the inmate in October 2024, and they had also exchanged messages about a $2,500 upfront payment.

She had allegedly communicated with the Florida prisoner several times about the scheme, including one message that read, per TMZ, “He’s asleep right now in the hotel room … I need to know what’s going on. Can I get an update? Was it done?”

Police told the outlet that they became aware of the messages after corrections officers found and seized the smuggled phone that the Florida inmate was using.

Victoria has denied plotting to have her husband killed and wanting him dead, police told TMZ. She also claimed that she had no recollection of sending messages to the Florida prisoner and alleged that she thought the money promised to be exchanged was for cell phones. However, she did concede that she and Aaron had been having marital issues.

PEOPLE has reached out to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as well as the Police departments in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Miami for more information but didn’t immediately receive a response.

Aaron told TMZ that he was blindsided by the news and thought the pair had been in a happy marriage.

He and Victoria wed in August 2022, with the Ghost Adventurers star sharing the news on Instagram alongside several photos of the celebration held at the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. He posted photos of the pair dancing in a golden ballroom and happily exchanging their “I do’s” at the altar.

“It finally happened ???? we got married. After postponing many times due to Covid we got our day. I couldn’t be happier ❤️,” he captioned the photos at the time.

Most recently, he also shared a Valentine’s Day post showing the back of Victoria’s head as she appeared to take a swing at mini-golf. He captioned the post, “My valentine always beats me at mini golf ❤️.”

[From People]

“Am I a bad person? Because I chose to end his existence. Not divorce.” Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, you are a bad person. Divorce may be an expensive PITA, but morally, it’s a better option than, ya know, murder. I can’t believe that Aaron allegedly had no idea that anyone was wrong. He had to have seen some type of warning signs, right? And to want it to happen while he’s on set filming? That sounds like the plot to an Elsbeth or Castle episode. I wonder if Victoria thought that would help her get a better insurance payout or something. Apparently, the hitman she hired is Grant Amato, who was convicted in 2019 of murdering his parents and brother. Amato is also the subject of the Paramount true-crime series, Ctrl Alt Desire. Victoria actually contacted him after seeing the series. This is just such a truly wild story. I bet a lot more comes out over the next few weeks.

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Categories
Dogs Joe Biden True Crime

CNN: Commander Biden had 24 recorded biting incidents at the White House

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Last year, we kept hearing stories about President Biden’s dog Commander Biden. Commander was given to the Bidens as a gift, after the Bidens had to send their beloved dog Major Biden away from the White House because Major kept “biting” people. Commander was just a puppy when he came to the White House, and many hoped that, with the proper training, Commander would be a friendly family dog. But according to the (delicious) Secret Service agents, Commander has the same “biting problem” as Major. The Secret Service claimed they had meticulously documented eleven biting incidents last year, which was weird because their meticulous record-keeping was nonexistent when it came to domestic terrorism on January 6th, 2021.

The issue with Commander’s biting problem became contentious within the White House – other people’s experiences with Commander were that he was a friendly, well-adjusted dog, and reportedly, the Bidens kind of thought that the Secret Service agents were lying about some of the incidents. Still, the Bidens sent Commander away as well and he’s been absent from the White House for like four months already. The White House press corps loves to write about this sh-t though, which is why CNN FOIA-requested the Secret Service’s records on Commander. Apparently, they recorded 24 biting incidents.

Commander Biden, President Joe Biden’s family dog, bit US Secret Service personnel in at least 24 incidents at the White House and other locations, according to new internal USSS documents obtained by CNN.

That number does not include additional incidents CNN has previously reported involving executive residence staff and other White House workers. But the new documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal the extent to which the situation had become a serious workplace issue for the hundreds of staff supporting White House operations, and how agency personnel changed their habits to avoid being injured by the German shepherd.

“The recent dog bites have challenged us to adjust our operational tactics when Commander is present – please give lots of room,” an unnamed assistant special agent in charge of USSS’ Presidential Protective Division wrote to their team in a June 2023 email, warning that agents “must be creative to ensure our own personal safety.”

That warning came months before the dog was removed from the White House, with multiple biting incidents taking place in the interim.

CNN has reviewed more than 400 pages of documents, many of which were heavily redacted to protect USSS personnel anonymity and operational details. In October 2022, an unnamed Secret Service technician described an incident and said they were “worried about the family pets behavior escalating and that … something worse was going to happen to others.”

The documented incidents included members of the Secret Service’s uniformed division, members of the president’s protective detail and other USSS officials. They took place inside and outside of the White House residence, but also at Biden family homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, at Camp David, and in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where the first family spends the Thanksgiving holiday.

A source close to the Biden family told CNN that the Biden family feels “awful” and has been “heartbroken” over the spate of biting incidents.

“They’ve been heartbroken over this. They’ve apologized to those who have been bitten, taken flowers to some. They feel awful. Commander was over-protective, and even though they tried and tried to work on it, they had to let him go live with other members of their family,” the source said.

[From CNN]

Commander really was out there barking “ACAB” all the time. Like, do I believe that the Secret Service agents were being purposefully melodramatic about two different dogs? Yes. Do I believe that Major and Commander were both bitey? Also yes. Do I believe that there’s something really f–ked up happening within the USSS? 100%. Not for nothing, but I honestly think some of this is just the breed – German shepherds are protective animals and both Major and Commander were trying to be good guard dogs for their mom and dad. I always believed that Commander, being so young when he came to the White House, was just doing puppy things and he didn’t know his own strength when he nipped people. But yeah, whatever. The dogs were sent away from the White House, it’s over.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, The White House, Backgrid.

Categories
True Crime

Joran van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee Holloway 18 years ago

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18 years after her disappearance, there’s finally justice for Natalee Holloway. For a quick refresher on one of the more infamous true crime stories from the last two decades, Natalee Holloway was 18 years old when she went to Aruba in May 2005 on a senior class trip. She was last seen leaving a nightclub with 18-year-old Dutch national Joran van der Sloot. Although he was arrested twice on suspicion of being involved with her disappearance and presumed death, van der Sloot was released each time for lack of evidence.

On the five year anniversary of Natalee’s disappearance, Joran murdered another young woman, which he was later convicted of and is currently serving time in prison for. The thing that brought about this confession, however, was charges of federal wire fraud and extortion. That psychopath made Natalee’s mother pay him $25,000 in exchange for info on where her daughter’s body was, then tried extorting her for an additional $250,000. He didn’t get his $250k, but he did get a plea deal! The main condition of this deal was to finally tell Beth Holloway the full truth about her daughter’s death. And this is just the condensed version. It’s been nearly two decades of twists and turns that have kept authorities, journalists and true crime podcast hosts busy. But now, finally, Natalee’s family has answers.

It’s been a long time coming, but Beth Holloway finally knows what happened to her daughter Natalee in Aruba, back in 2005.

Joran van der Sloot, the now 36-year-old man long believed to be responsible for Natalee Holloway’s death pleaded guilty Wednesday in a Birmingham federal courtroom to wire fraud and extortion charges. As part of the plea deal, van der Sloot agreed to tell Beth Holloway how her daughter died and where her body was stashed.

Natalee went missing on a high school graduation trip to the Dutch Caribbean island. Van der Sloot was the last person to be seen with the 18-year-old. Though he was a suspect from the beginning, Aruba authorities never managed to build a case.

In the United States, however, federal prosecutors in Alabama had charged van der Sloot with extortion and wire fraud in 2010, while he was already in prison in Peru for a killing a college student, Stephany Flores, in his hotel room in Lima. In the indictment, the U.S. government said van der Sloot had attempted to get $250,000 from Beth Holloway in exchange for information and details in Natalee’s death.

“Today, the United States held Joran van der Sloot accountable for his scheme to exploit a mother looking for information about her missing daughter,” U.S. Attorney Prim Escalona said in a statement.

For Beth Holloway, it wasn’t the guilty plea she would have liked to see. “I can tell you with certainty that after 18 years, Natalie’s case is solved as far as I’m concerned,” she told reporters outside the courthouse. “It’s over, it’s over. Joran van der Sloot is no longer the suspect in my daughter’s murder. He is the killer.”

Holloway said specific details about what van der Sloot did the night he killed her daughter would come later. But she spoke in court that he bludgeoned her after she rebuffed his sexual advances and dumped her body in the ocean. Addressing van der Sloot directly she said, “You are a killer and I want you to remember that every time you hear that cell door close.”

A judge sentenced van der Sloot to 20 years in a U.S. federal prison. First he will be returned to Peru to complete serving time for the murder of Flores. If he serves more than 20 years there, he will not need to return to the U.S. to finish his sentence for extortion and wire fraud.

[From NPR]

So there you have it. After nearly two decades of headlines, Natalee’s family finally knows what happened to her. I was in college, going on trips and spring break with my own friends when Natalee disappeared, and I remember how it was such a huge, international story. What happened to her is a woman’s worst nightmare. It’s so scary and awful. Natalee’s mom believes van der Sloot’s latest account to be the truth and although the Holloway family may never truly heal from their loss, I hope having answers will give them closure.

I would be remiss, though, if I didn’t acknowledge that Natalee’s story got attention because she was a young, pretty, white woman who fits the description of a victim that the media is more likely to give attention to. This doesn’t make Natalee’s death any less tragic. I hope van der Sloot rots for what he did to her and his second victim. I just think it’s important to also acknowledge that young BIWOC also deserve to have the same level of attention and desire for justice that the world gave to Natalee. I’ve heard some of their stories through true crime podcasts and think it’s really great that there is a medium that can get their stories out there, as well.

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Photos via social media, Getty and Holloway family

Categories
Alex Murdaugh True Crime

Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murder on all counts, likely to get life

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The story of the Murdaugh family in lowcountry, South Carolina is sordid and infuriating. They come from a long line of influential, well-connected DAs and acted above the law, with impunity, for decades. Alex, 54, was addicted to painkillers and embezzling money from clients at his law firm. His son, Paul, was boating drunk in 2019 when he caused an accident that resulted in a young woman’s death. His older son, Buster, was rumored to have been in a relationship with a young man who was found dead in 2015 by blunt force trauma. Alex’s wife, Margaret, was at home in 2018 when the family’s longterm housekeeper was found dead from a head wound following an alleged fall down the stairs. Alex collected the multimillion insurance payout from her death, laundering it with the help of local banks and not paying a penny to her surviving sons. So many people had personal beef with the Murdaughs. When both Margaret and Paul were found shot dead in June, 2021, the list of suspects was long. Their father, attorney Alex Murdaugh, was just convicted on all counts of their murders after a highly publicized trial. Prosecutors are seeking life without parole.

In a case that has captured nationwide attention, Alex Murdaugh was convicted Thursday evening of murdering his wife and son in South Carolina, where the death penalty is legal. But prosecutors have said they are not seeking capital punishment.

“After carefully reviewing this case and all the surrounding facts, we have decided to seek life without parole,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a December statement. Robert Kittle, a spokesperson for Wilson, said that is still the state’s intention following the guilty verdict.

Murdaugh was also convicted on two counts of possession of a weapon while committing a violent crime, which could add an additional five years each of prison time, though that does not apply when a defendant is sentenced to life without parole, according to South Carolina law.

He faces a minimum of 30 years in prison and potentially life behind bars without parole.

[From The Washington Post]

A juror in the Murdaugh case said that the cell phone footage placing Alex Murdaugh at the dog kennels, the place where Margaret and Paul were murdered, helped him declare Alex guilty. I didn’t follow this trial but I watched the three part HBO docuseries on the Murdaughs, Low Country: The Murdaugh Dynasty. I came away feeling sympathy for their victims and anger that they were allowed to escape the law as long as they did. How many other families and dynasties exist who get away with murder and robbery? A three part Netflix series about this family just came out, Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, and it’s number two on Netflix’s TV ratings this week. I’m glad this case is getting publicity and that Alex was convicted and will hopefully never see the other side of a jail cell. I also hope that this family’s victims will get restitution.

BREAKING: Jury finds Alex Murdaugh guilty of double murder. https://t.co/LZCGGhjDFL pic.twitter.com/J6tFqLJOzz

— ABC News (@ABC) March 3, 2023

It’s likely the Murdaughs have a long legacy of murder and fraud.

The founder of the Murdaugh legal dynasty, Randolph Murdaugh Sr., was killed in a suspicious train crash, from which his son benefited, in 1940. https://t.co/nKPwk4NJWg

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 3, 2023

Photos credit: Netflix and via Instagram

Categories
Documentaries True Crime

True crime is so popular as ‘there is affinity with the perils women experience in society’

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What do you guys consider true crime? Before I read this article, I would mainly associate the phrase with murder, abduction and other physical crimes, but it certainly encompasses financial crimes as well. But generally, I do love a good fictional murder mystery so I suppose it makes sense that interest carries over to my watching the Law and Order franchise, those creepy shows about disappearances on Investigation Discovery, etc.

I never thought too much about my interest in these disturbing topics — perhaps it was the detective aspect — but this Variety article really explores the why of people’s interest in true crime entertainment. In particular, true crime has a large female audience. The execs quoted in the article speculate about that.

“The fascination with true crime has never been stronger,” says Dan Korn, VP of programming at A E Networks U.K ., whose channels include Crime Investigation. “We spend a lot of time trying to work out why that is. Did people’s sense of isolation in lockdown have something to do with it?

“People are fascinated by stories of almost inconceivable inhumanity and trying to understand why people do these things,” he adds. “They’re also in love with the detective process — the romance of police detection. The audience loves seeing cops doing their work…”

“I, Sniper, the Washington Killers,” produced by [John] Smithson’s Arrow Pictures, plays out over six episodes. It recounts the shocking account of 17-year-old Lee Malvo and Gulf War veteran John Muhammad, who went on a shooting spree in the D.C. area that resulted in the death of 10 people over 23 days in 2002.

The series, shown by Vice in the U.S. and Channel 4 in the U.K., took 15 years from conception to completion and is typical of highend true crime docus that involve costly, time-consuming edits.

“Once upon a time you’d do something like this as, at most, a two-hour special but now you do it as a box set,” says Smithson, who credits the streamers with raising the bar for true crime. “There’s no question the streamers have acted as a catalyst.”

“The streamers have exposed people to a new way of storytelling,” echoes Olivia Morgan, acquisitions and co-production executive at U.K. boutique distributor BossaNova.

While many of the shows that cut through are editorially and visually ambitious, true crime TV’s core audience remains the same. Murder, mayhem and the mob are a staple part of a lot of viewers’ screen diet. Many shows are aimed at suburban females who tend to watch a lot of daytime TV.

“So many of our viewers are women in their 40s,” Korn says. “A lot of the victims are women … and there is this identification and affinity with the perils that women experience in society.”

He adds: “For some women — and this is not to trivialize it — crime stories have a bit of a soap-opera quality to them. Some of the titles, ‘Nightmare Next Door’ or ‘Women Who Kill,’ have a tabloidesque or soap-opera aspect.”

Morgan agrees: “Female viewers do absolutely love true crime. It’s a human-interest thing — the human stories that are involved in these horrific times. When you tell a story very well, it captures the audience’s empathy as well as the horror.

“Why do people watch horror films? We can’t explain why people are obsessed with the dark side of humanity, but they are. Obviously, true crime captures something in what is traditionally termed the female psyche.”

Morgan says true crime TV needs to evolve to the point where there is less emphasis on the male gaze and some of the other cliches of the genre. “You don’t want to fall into the trap of ‘Here’s another rape of a blonde girl.’ When you’re developing true crime, it’s important to be aware of how the material can be sensationalized,” he says. “You need to be a responsible distributor and encourage development that veers away from the traditional male-focused narrative and think about how the story is relevant to today and appeals to modern audiences.

While the past content includes “a real penchant for the ultimate victim being female,” that’s not actually the case.

“Unfortunately, there are more murders committed against women,” Morgan says. “Statistically, more men murder men than women murder men so it’s always going to be a bit one-sided. These shows need to be research-based, rather than sensationalist and build on the stories from the point of view of the investigation and have a genuine point of difference that isn’t that kind of unhealthy ‘Wow, isn’t it dreadful that this actually happened?’ These days you need to be cleverer than that.”

Clearly, producers need to be sensitive to the feelings of the victims and their families to avoid gratuitously sexing up the crime. “Anyone who works on these programs is constantly on a tight rope of trying to create something that is compelling. It’s easy to cross a line into areas where, as a filmmaker you feel less comfortable,” Smithson says. “You’ve got to be aware that you’re dealing with real people and real victims.”

[From Variety via Yahoo]

What would you say started the latest wave of the true crime craze? I would say the first season of Serial, though I suppose that’s just my perspective. The Law and Order franchise is also ubiquitous and became very easy to binge watch with the rise of streamers. And then, my absolute favorite, Only Murders in the Building, is about the true crime craze and the personalities it attracts. What the article says about streamers and a new way of storytelling is true: streaming series really allow a story to unfold and breathe, instead of condensing most of the relevant details into an hour or two and missing a lot of nuance. (In general this is my opinion on TV vs. movies, but I’m aware this is an unpopular opinion).

The suggested reasons why women might connect more with true crime stories are interesting. I disagree with the soap opera comparison — even though he qualified that comment by saying he didn’t mean to trivialize it, it definitely came off as a little condescending. I think the human interest speculation is correct. Making generalizations here, but I think we empathize and think about the people at the center of these stories and try to imagine what their lives are like. And then there’s always the “it could happen to anyone, it could happen to me” aspect. Real crimes against women are often heavily covered in news and often unsolved, so watching stories that solve or at least attempt to solve these crimes can bring a sense of resolution and relief. And perhaps consuming this media about terrible things that can happen can make other, everyday life problems seem lesser in comparison.

Photos are from Netflix’s American Murder: The Family Next Door featuring Shanann and Chris Watts

Categories
Documentaries Netflix Sarma Melngailis True Crime

Sarma of Bad Vegan had an affair with her married lawyer, may have jeopardized her case

sarma-of-bad-vegan-had-an-affair-with-her-married-lawyer,-may-have-jeopardized-her-case




TW: Sexual assault


The more details I learn about Sarma Melngailis of Bad Vegan, the more bizarre this story seems. Last week we heard that Sarma had a fling in 2012, before her marriage, with a different abusive POS, comic Louis CK. Louis gave her an STD and was dismissive and rude to her about it over email.

There’s also news that Sarma had an affair with her married lawyer before she was sentenced to prison in 2017. Sarma’s first lawyer, a woman named Sheila Tendy, wanted to use the defense that Sarma was a victim of coercive control and sexual abuse by her husband, Anthony Strangis. Strangis was the dumpy svengali who convinced Sarma to send him large sums of money, leading her to default on her restaurant’s payroll. However Sarma replaced Tendy with another lawyer named Jeffrey Lichtman, who had represented John Gotti and El Chapo. Lichtman abandoned that strategy and had Sarma focus on restitution.

Tendy was interviewed for an article by Allen Salkin, the Vanity Fair journalist who was featured in Bad Vegan. Tendy told Salkin that Sarma’s new lawyer had her pleading guilty to three counts instead of just one. She ended up getting sentenced to a year in prison and serving four months. What’s more is that Sarma and her second married lawyer, Lichtman, were romantically involved. Lichtman didn’t deny this when questioned about it. Whatever happened between them is likely over now though, because Sarma called him an “compacted turd” when asked for comment. Here’s part of Salkin’s article:

Tendy was working on getting the Manhattan Special Victims Unit involved in investigating whether Melngailis was the victim of sex crimes by Strangis. And the lawyer was asking the Brooklyn DA if their office could pry loose financial records from tribal casinos to find out if Strangis had gambled away the vast sums he’d been wired or had channeled funds elsewhere.

In court documents, Tendy and her co-counsel César de Castro argued that “Mr. Strangis repeatedly raped Sarma, forcing her to commit sexual acts against her will,” and quoted a G-chat in which Melngails accuses him of forcing her to perform oral sex. Strangis was never charged with any sex or assault related crimes in this case.

But Strangis being charged was not essential to Tendy’s multi-tiered strategy. An active investigation of such charges alone might be something the Brooklyn court would consider in its appraisal of Melngailis culpability in the fraud case…

Tendy tells me now that when she was working out a plea deal with the court, it was to have Melngailis plead guilty to one felony charge only and to have Strangis be liable for all restitution.

The Netflix documentary, which is gripping, omits some fascinating details about what happened next on the legal front.

In the Spring of 2017, right as Tendy’s legal strategy was playing out, Melngailis fired Tendy and hired Jeffrey Lichtman, a lawyer best known for defending a mafia figure, John Gotti Jr. and the drug lord El Chapo, and for hosting a radio talk show.

Melngailis has offered little explanation of why she switched from a strong female with a great reputation to a man known for helping Gotti beat three charges of murder conspiracy. She has told me that she was not completely aware of all the angles Tendy was pursuing and was frustrated that jail time seemed inevitable.

Lichtman did not continue to try to push the sex crimes charges, and Melngailis was not interested in that either. Lichtman was relying on a method that had worked for him before to lessen time his clients would have to spend behind bars, focusing, he told me in a 2017 interview, on restitution.

Lichtman has not replied to my new requests sent via email and text message for comment about the Melngailis case. After it was over, The New York Post reported that he had engaged in a sexual affair with Melngailis. Lichtman told The Post, “This is a deeply personal matter that I’m going to try to deal with privately, but I’m proud of my legal work in this case.”

In Lichtman’s text messages that were published in the Post, he disparaged Tendy and said she is “obsessed with sexual abuse.”

Tendy bristled at the accusations. “Anyone would wonder how an attorney could represent a client in a case with strong evidence of sexual abuse and coercion, sleep with that client, and at the same time disparage her former lawyer as “obsessed with sexual abuse.”

“Jeffrey Lichtman takes over and she goes from pleading guilty to one charge to pleading guilty to three,” Tendy said. “I wouldn’t have wanted her to have a ‘scheme to defraud’ on her record…”

Melngailis herself refused an interview about Lichtman when I reached her this week, asking me, “Are you writing about that compacted turd?”

[From Forward via Parade]

Salkin’s article goes on to wonder whether public perception of Sarma would be sympathetic if she hadn’t fired Tendy as her lawyer and had successfully argued in court that she was victimized by Strangis. As I mentioned in the last story on Bad Vegan, the issue of coercive control and abuse was only tangential to the documentary and was barely focused on. I would blame Bad Vegan’s filmmaker for not including these crucial details, but it sounds like Sarma was still in denial about it and wasn’t forthcoming either. Salkin describes her as “shellshocked” when he first interviewed her after her arrest in 2016.

Leave it to Sarma to screw up her defense by hiring a terrible lawyer and getting involved with him. I hope she’s in therapy and is taking some time to be single. There are certainly enough additional twists to this story to lead to a second documentary. Given the popularity of Bad Vegan, I’m assuming it’s coming.

Also Sarma’s dog, Leon, is still alive at 12.


Photos credit: Netflix