Brooklyn’s “bling bishop” Lamor Whitehead, sometimes described as a mentor to New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, has been sentenced to nine years in prison for defrauding a parishioner’s mother out of her life savings and other scams.
The Manhattan federal court judge Lorna Schofield handed down the sentence to Whitehead on Monday, three months after he was convicted of wire fraud, attempted extortion and lying to the FBI.
Whitehead, 46, head of the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Canarsie, Brooklyn, had been accused by federal government prosecutors of persuading parishioner Pauline Anderson to invest about $90,000 of her retirement savings with him – and had then spent the money on payments for a BMW and goods from Louis Vuitton.
He was also convicted of trying to extort auto body shop owner Brandon Belmonte of $500,000 by promising access to Adams. At trial, prosecutors said Whitehead “was lying about the access, he was lying about the influence, he was lying about all of it”.
Whitehead came to wider public attention in May 2022 when he reportedly tried to negotiate the surrender of a man who had fatally shot a Goldman Sachs employee Daniel Enriquez on a Q-line subway train.
But when Whitehead visited suspect Andrew Abdullah in police detention, he arrived in a Fendi suit jacket and driving a Rolls-Royce sport-utility vehicle, drawing the attention of investigators.
Six weeks later, in July, the so-called “bling-bling bishop” was robbed at gunpoint by thieves who made off with his jewelry, including a $390,000 Cuban link chain and a $75,000 Rolex, during a livestreamed sermon he was delivering at his Carnarsie ministry.
A search of Whitehead’s prior criminal history revealed a 2008 identity-theft conviction for which he served five years in Sing Sing and the parishioners’ 2021 civil fraud claim that became part of the government’s case against him.
Whitehead later ran to replace Mayor Adams as Brooklyn’s borough president, resisted claims that the church robbery had been faked, and that his showboating after the fatal subway shooting had led to his fraud prosecution. What’s wrong, he asked a reporter with New York Magazine, with being “godly and glamorous”?
But he denied that the attempt to broker a deal between Abdullah and police was criminal justice showboating. “It’s not about loving the camera,” he told the magazine. “Just because I’m dressed for the day and have a Fendi coat on, I’m not supposed to be a pastor?”
