Sarma Melngailis only found out Jeffrey Lichtman was married after her racy texts with drug lord El Chapo’s lawyer were leaked.
It emerged a week ago that Jeffrey Lichtman may not be able to visit his own client in jail and the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office could launch an investigation into Lichtman’s texts.
But convicted restaurateur Melngailis said she didn’t know the 53-year-old had a wife and two children.
Sarma Melngailis, pictured in a Brooklyn court with Jeffrey Lichtman in June 2017, said ‘it just hurts a bit’ that she wasn’t told he had a wife and two children when they were intimate
Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman’s may not be able to visit El Chapo in jail after he discussed El Chapo in texts to former restaurateur Sarma Melngailis
She told the New York Post that ‘it just hurts a bit’ after apparently being deceived. According to the publication, Melngailis did not ask Litchman if he was married until after they had sex.
‘Separated since December,’ he told her in a May 19, 2017, text. The pair allegedly started sending messages of a sexual nature in February 2017. Lichtman’s wife later revealed they had never separated and she had no knowledge of the affair.
Melngailis, 46, rose to popularity when her two Manhattan vegan eateries – Lucky Duck restaurant and Pure Food & Wine – became foodie sensations in the city.
Dubbed the ‘Vegan Bernie Madoff’ was jailed for more than three months in 2017 after she confessed to stealing more than $1million from her former workers and investors.
Melngailis acknowledged that her responses to the lawyer weren’t as keen as his but that’s because she’s a ‘bad sexter’.
On May 2, just days before Melngailis’ plea deal, Lichtman sent her a text alluding to a previous dalliance. ‘I loved being in you,’ he wrote.
Sarma Melngailis allegedly had a 15-month affair with Lichtman while he was her attorney. She admitted her sexts were awkward and that she felt ‘uncomfortable’
Melngailis replied: ‘And see how you lucked out: I didn’t go all praying mantis and kill and eat you after. For that would have only been self-defeating.’
‘You felt perfect. Like it fit perfectly. Do you want that again,’ he wrote days later.
‘Yes I do,’ Melngailis answered.
In her new interview she admitted: ‘I personally feel uncomfortable saying things. My responses tended to be awkwardly formal or some type of joke.’
The 46-year-old said when she found out she was going back to Rikers Island jail, she felt worse for Lichtman
The restaurateur claimed they ‘will always be friends’ and remembers how ‘he smelled good’ during their alleged 15-month affair.
The blonde bombshell said she’d experienced plenty of inappropriate behavior from others in the past but said Lichtman was ‘totally different’.
‘I really appreciated that he treated me like I’m equal, I’m smart, I’m direct, I’m honest. This is something we’re working on together,’ she gushed to The Post.
In fact, she felt so strongly for him that she felt bad for him when she was sent to Rikers Island jail.
‘When I found out I was going to be going back to Rikers, I almost felt worse for him because I felt like he was taking it really hard,’ she said. ‘My going away was painful for him, too. It has to be hard if you care about somebody.’
But in an explosive message the day before her plea deal, the texts continued as Lichtman told his client that he would want to have sex with her while she was on her nightly Ambien.
‘I would be in favor of that,’ Melngailis said. ‘They make me kind of rag dollish.’
‘Perfect,’ he replied.
A veteran federal defense lawyer said it is likely the Federal Bureau of Prisons could get involved as well because of Lichtman’s texts
Just two days after she pleaded guilty to charges of grand larceny, criminal tax fraud, and a scheme to defraud, Lichtman sent his client this sex-fueled text.
‘Do you want to belong to me? Will it be ok if some days I just use your body so that I can [orgasm]?’ he wrote.
Lichtman later told Melngailis that he was ‘swooning’ for her while they were in court together.
‘I wanted you to feel my shoulder rubbing up against yours…I need to eat you,’ Lichtman continued.
In one May exchange, Melngailis reassured Lichtman that she hadn’t told anyone about their affair.
‘I expected you to keep this between us,’ he responded. ‘Look. You know how important you are to me.’
‘I wanted you to feel my shoulder rubbing up against yours…I need to eat you,’ Lichtman told her in one text. He is pictured right outside Brooklyn Federal Court in 2017
It’s no wonder she felt close to the lawyer; Lichtman confided in Melngailis on March 16, 2017: ‘Is it bad that I’m hiring a belly dancer to be Chapo’s daily visitor?’
In addition to messages about their affair, Lichtman also texted Melngailis about her former defense lawyer Sheila Tendy.
He claimed that Tendy was ‘obsessed with sexual abuse’, telling Melngailis: ‘That’s why I wasn’t looking at her when sitting next to her on the bench. I didn’t want to be accused of rape’.
After the texts referring to El Chapo were leaked, it wasn’t the first time the drug lord’s team has gotten in trouble with Judge Brian Cogan.
Last month Cogan forbade two members of the defense team from bringing cellphones into court for an entire year after prosecutors claimed they were using the phones to help El Chapo secretly text his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro.
Melngailis alleged Louis CK told her he never swore that I was clean’ when she accused him of giving her an STD. He allegedly told her she should’ve made him wear a condom
She also spoke about Alec Baldwin whom she says she broke up with but never slept with because she was intimate with another man at the same time
Melngailis also shared with The Post, an email said to be from Louis CK who allegedly told her he ‘never swore that I was clean’ when she accused him of possibly giving her an STD.
‘I should have worn a condom, you should have made me, we should have a lot of things,’ the written response included.
She claims to still be friends will the comedian too and said the disgraced star that she knows from growing up in Massachusetts is ‘the only guy who has ever picked up my dog’s poop’.
It was not the same for Alec Baldwin whom she says she broke up with but never slept with because she was intimate with another man at the same time.
They dated but she put the relationship fizzling out down to her not wanting children. She said she has no desire to marry again after splitting with her co-conspirator husband Anthony Strangis.
Prior to her new interview, Lichtman said in a statement that his affair with Melngailis is a ‘deeply personal matter’ that he is ‘going to try to deal with privately’.
‘My life and behavior have not always been perfect – as I think we can all say – but I’m proud of my legal work in this case and on behalf of all the clients I’ve represented for the past 28 years,’ he added.
‘My personal feelings have never impacted my professional work or the results that I have achieved.’
Meanwhile, Melngailis claimed that someone ‘criminally accessed’ her devices and ‘took copies of existing and deleted materials’.
‘I immediately filed a police report and sought protections, which were violated,’ she added.
‘I’m personally mortified that this person who very much wants to hurt me has successfully done so and worse in the form of this collateral damage to Jeffrey.’