The Fraudulent Nun

The Con

Despite all claims to the contrary, the economy is not improving.  Last weeks unemployment claims rose, gas is near $4.00 a gallon and Episcopalian Nuns have been seen panhandling on Mulberry Street.

What a sad turn of events.  Women who spend their lives contemplating the very nature of the Almighty and they may better serve that nature forced into begging for change to help fund their programs for the needy, the poor, the oppressed.  It seems these Nuns are no longer able to follow the creed of their fellow Episcopalian Carmelites: hidden, silent missionaries responding to the needs of the world by holding them in continual prayer.

But it does seem odd for those who have taken vows of poverty to be begging for a few nickels outside of the tithe.  According to the attorney general, they weren’t begging for the poor but for themselves.

(From the New York Post)

The lying nun refuses to confess her sins.

Eight months after The Post exposed phony sister Melinda LeGrand as a fraud, the habit-wearing grifter insisted she and her fake Brooklyn church raised money for needy kids.

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman disagrees. He filed civil charges Friday seeking to disband the “sham” organization, seize its assets and make LeGrand pay restitution for allegedly pocketing all the donations she collected in Little Italy on behalf of orphaned children and the homeless.

“I didn’t do anything wrong — I’m not a criminal,” 55-year-old “Sister Mindy” said yesterday.

“I’m not a bad person. I’m a very good- natured person. The organization wasn’t a sham. It was a real charity. Buying food, feeding children is a charity organization.”

LeGrand also claimed she raised little money.

“It was a couple of dimes,” she scoffed, noting that she trotted out her bad habit “maybe three times a month.”

She added: “No money went for personal use.”

Not so, says the attorney general, whose withering complaint charged that for years LeGrand begged residents, shoppers and tourists to support the “children of St. Joseph’s” and other phantom programs founded by a convicted killer rapist.

“In fact, the social programs do not exist,” said the civil suit, finding that there was no summer camp, orphanage or youth services of any kind at the family headquarters at 222 Brooklyn Ave. in Crown Heights.

“Melindia LeGrand is not a nun and St. Joseph’s is not a functioning church. [It] is simply a front for fraudulent fund-raising that is run by members of the LeGrand family, which has a notorious history of crime in Brooklyn,” court papers allege.

The suit says the two women didn’t even bother to count their handouts and simply pocketed the cash.

“They just used the money for themselves,” it says.

In documents filed with the city Human Resources Administration, LeGrand claimed she pulled in between $150 and $250 per week between January 2004 and September 2009 — about $55,000, the suit says.

Last summer, The Post watched LeGrand fill a cup with dollars while accosting donors on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, claiming to be with the Episcopalian Church and raising funds for an upstate orphanage.

At the end of her begging shift, she disrobed on the street, a cigarette dangling from her lips, pulling off her nun’s habit and cross and stuffing the costume into a plastic shopping bag. A boy who answered her door a few days later said Sister Mindy had gone to Atlantic City.

So Mindy LeGrand has a fling with the Great Magnet and uses said affair to make a few bucks.  Quick word of advice to you Mindy: beware.  Your ex has a temper.

 

 

 

 

 

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