After Woman Tapes Sign to Door, Neighbors Face Charges

Black woman says she was harassed for years
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 18, 2020 3:05 PM CDT
NY Couple Charged With Harassing Black Neighbor
A sign taped to the front door of the home of Jennifer McLeggan, Monday, July 13, 2020, in Valley Stream, New York.   (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A Long Island couple accused of waging a years-long campaign of harassment against their Black neighbor were arrested Monday. John McEneaney, 57, was charged with criminal mischief and harassment and Mindy Canarick, 53, was charged with criminal tampering, NBC reports. Registered nurse Jennifer McLeggan says the harassment began as soon as she moved to the Valley Stream neighborhood in 2017; she was pregnant with her daughter, who is now 2, at the time. She accuses the next-door neighbors of dumping dog feces in her yard and regularly shooting a pellet gun across the lawn. "They said: 'Go back to where you came from,'" McLeggan tells the New York Daily News. “That’s what going on here. I don’t deserve it."

McLeggan's plight received widespread attention in July after she posted signs on her property detailing the alleged harassment. "My neighbors have been racially harassing me since I purchased my home,” she wrote. "I live in fear of my life at home." Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said investigators carried out a "comprehensive review" and charged the couple "because of a pattern of intolerable conduct." "The sign on Jennifer McLeggan's door broke my heart and rallied a community to her aid," Singas said Monday, per ABC7. "It also moved my office to investigate this matter because nobody should have to live in fear of harassment from their neighbors." Other minority residents in the area say they were also harassed by the white couple when they first moved in, but not to the same extent. (More Long Island stories.)

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