Mysterious twins with ties to Jay-Z, De Niro upsetting NYC parents as they creep around kids at playground
They’re seeing double trouble.
Upper East Side parents and nannies are up in arms — and calling authorities — over a pair of mysterious identical twin women who don’t have kids themselves but often hang around the John Jay Park playground.
They say the duo is creeping around their kids, eerily engaging them — one caretaker recalled a twin wanting to braid her young charge’s hair and then photograph the tot — and asking invasive questions.
“This is my daughter’s playground. I don’t want adults around children,” Paulina, a 35-year-old mother of four, told The Post.
This past Wednesday, she spotted the two 40-year-old women — who are known as the “Indiggo Twins” but whose real names are Gabriela and Mihaela Modorcea — at the park.
She recognized them from a picture posted on an online mommy group and immediately phoned the police.
“I don’t know why they’re not doing something better with their lives instead of hanging out at a playground,” Paulina fumed. “You have to draw the line.”
Last week, after a flurry of parents voiced concerns to Community Board 5, the Parks Department erected a sign on the gates outside the entrance to the playground reading, “No adults except in the company of a child.”
But while the twins have violated that stated park rule, the department has not been advised of any actual illegal activity involving them.
Still, some caring for little ones say the sisters have come too close.
One caretaker recalled feeling uncomfortable after they asked the name and age of one of the babies she looked after.
The nanny who recounted the strange hair-braiding incident said she left the park and took her 3-year-old charge home immediately after the encounter.
“It’s really scary,” the nanny, who asked for anonymity, told The Post. “Maybe she wants to do something else.”
Moms have been sounding off about the twins for months in a local Facebook group.
“If you’re not with kids, stay out of the playground,” one parent wrote in a thread.
Another parent pleaded, “Call whoever you have to call to keep our kids safe.”
But the Modorceas say they’re being unfairly villainized.
“We’ve lived here for 16 years. For 16 years we’ve gone to John Jay. It’s the closest to us. It’s a completely false alarm,” Gabriela said.
The sisters’ story, according to them, is that they were born in Transylvania in 1983 and went to the Bucharest National University of Arts.
In 2006, they came to the US to pursue a career in music and theater.
They settled in a humble Upper East Side apartment where they lived with their mother.
Gabriela plays the piano and works as a composer while Mihaela plays the guitar and writes songs.
Before they made parents bristle with their playground presence, the twins had a number of more positive brushes with fame.
In 2008, they appeared on “America’s Got Talent.”
The following year, they were in a New York Post story about keeping fit. In 2011, they were photographed kissing Robert De Nero at a Vanity Fair party.
That same year, one of their songs was sampled on Jay-Z’s “Watch The Throne” album.
In 2017, they performed a song from their Off-Broadway play “Wicked Clone” on “Good Day New York.”
The duo claimed they’ve been shocked by the recent allegations against them and are simply well-meaning, ethereal artists who follow Jesus and always wear matching — or at least complementary — outfits.
“The way we look [in the parenting group] — we look like criminals. Hardcore criminals. My weapon is love,” Gabriela said. “We’re Christians, we’re all about promoting love and light.”
“It’s a completely false alarm. It’s the opposite,” Mihaela added.
Not all Upper East Siders find the sisters worrisome.
“They don’t seem harmful to me. Total strangers, yes, but they’ve interacted with us and I don’t feel like it’s a threat,” Lucilla, a nanny of 33 years, told The Post. “They have men that come in the park that don’t come with kids. They have young kids that smoke. That’s what [authorities] need to focus on. I don’t think they should be worried about [the twins].”
In a statement, the Parks Department told The Post, “We will be increasing our patrols of our Parks Enforcement officers around the playground to monitor.”
The organization has advised parents to report any illegal activity to the NYPD.
Twirling about the playground this past Wednesday, wearing matching, flowing, multi-colored dresses they designed, Gabriela insisted they had no ill will.
Parents skeptically watched them from a distance.
Some wheeled their strollers out of the playground after seeing the pair.
“We love children beyond belief,” Mihaela insisted, adding that parents just need to be more open.
“Once they have spirituality and love is blooming inside their heart, they will know how to distinguish who is someone who will harm your child and who is filled with love,” she said. “It’s challenging, weird times where people are overly crazy.”
