A white Long Island couple that spent three years harassing a Black woman who lived in a home nearby, now faces criminal charges.
On Monday, Aug. 17, the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office charged John McEneaney, 57, with criminal mischief and harassment, and Mindy Canarick, 53, with criminal tampering.
Jennifer McLeggan, a 39-year-old single mother who has lived on Sapir St. since 2017, says her neighbors have been harassing her for three years.
Last month, her story went viral after she posted signs on the windows of her home detailing the mistreatment she was enduring.
According to the posters, McLeggan’s neighbors had thrown human feces and dead squirrels into her yard, spit on her property, taunted her in blackface, and walked around her backyard brandishing guns.
The neighbors also verbally harassed her, telling her that she could be “erased,” and that she should go back to her country. McLeggan, a registered nurse who lives with her young daughter, said she was often in fear of her life.
Although the police reportedly could not make any arrests unless McLeggan had been harmed, her predicament gained national attention when the story was circulated on social media. A GoFundMe page helped McLeggan raise almost $50,000 so that she could have a security camera installed to film the harassment.
Last month a Black man known as @Flow349 on Twitter took it upon himself to provide protection for McLeggan and her daughter. He began to sit in his parked car outside her home in July to ensure her safety, with the community later starting to rally around him to donate supplies and join in on taking shifts to protect McLeggan.
McEneaney says he never wore blackface to intimidate McLeggan and says he just wears a ski mask when shoveling snow. He says he feared for his life after receiving death threats on social media. The police have been contacted regarding the conflict between the neighbors 50 times over the past three years. The dispute seems to have arisen from McEneaney and Caranick’s concerns over the condition of McLeggan’s yard, and escalated over time.
