Nuns on the Run

They weren't happy to see us at one home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn this past week.

I was paying a return visit to a location I first stumbled upon in April 2001.
There was another visitor who showed up, as well--an investigator from the New York State Attorney General's office. He was there trying to serve a subpoena to a woman living at 222 Brooklyn Avenue. The woman is suspected of being a phony nun, who's based out of this 4-story building owned by the infamous LeGrand family. The nun operation--involving women who beg for money in busy, city locations--has apparently been going on for decades, and it's a story PIX 11 News first told viewers about more than nine years ago.

Back in the 1970's, the now-deceased Devernon LeGrand was convicted of killing two, teenage girls in he same, Crown Heights building--before dismembering their bodies and burning them at his upstate farm. He was also convicted of murdering an ex-wife.

Many other parishioners went "missing" at various points. LeGrand fancied himself a bishop, and police say he recruited teenagers to join his church, plying them with drugs and alcohol, using them as sex slaves, and then sending them out on the street to beg for money, dressed as nuns. He reportedly made up to $250,000 a year with this operation, and the "sister act" apparently continued long after he went to prison--and after he died in jail.

In April 2001, PIX 11 News noticed a nun begging for money near the World Financial Center downtown. We questioned various "nuns" at well-travelled commuter hubs and followed one of them home from her perch near the #7 subway in Grand Central Station. Turns out, Sister Vivian's home was the building located at 222 Brooklyn Avenue.

The New York Post recently ran a story about a nun begging for money in Little Italy, on Mulberry Street--snapping photos of "Sister Melindia" changing out of her habit into street clothes--and heading home to, you guessed it, 222 Brooklyn Avenue. That's when the New York State Attorney General sprang into action. His office sent investigators to the LeGrand home last week, and PIX 11 was there when one investigator returned this week with a new subpoena, for a different woman named Vivian.

Police say Devernon LeGrand fathered 46 children, and some of them still live at 222 Brooklyn Avenue. One of his sons, Minty LeGrand, spoke to PIX 11 News: "It's no secret that my father died in prison. He paid his debt to society." LeGrand added, "We don't want to relive the past. My father has over 300 grandchildren and great-grandkids that don't have to grow up under that umbrella. They need to live normal lives."

When we asked Minty LeGrand about the so-called sister acts, he replied: "There are no nuns. We have no nuns." When we asked about Sister Melindia, he responded: "She's not a nun. She was dressed in a habit, not as a nun. Sister Melindia comes sometimes, and she helps to collect donations, which are applied to food we serve to kids in the area and to the tournaments I run for the kids." LeGrand claims his family still runs a Pentecostal church inside the building and said of the renewed press attention, "I pray to God you people would just leave us alone."

Mary Murphy
8/7/10