NEW YORK — Indicted Brooklyn pastor Lamor Whitehead claimed last year that he keeps guns at his church and maintains such a close relationship with Mayor Eric Adams that he can get him to take a meeting with anyone, according to a new court filing from federal prosecutors.
Whitehead — who’s facing criminal charges for allegedly extorting a businessman, swindling a retired parishioner, lying to the FBI and filing false bank documents — made the extraordinary comments about weapons and the mayor in conversations caught on audio recordings the feds say they have.
Describing the recordings in Manhattan Federal Court papers last week, the feds alleged Whitehead told Brandon Belmonte, the Bronx businessman he’s accused of extorting, that they could “make so much money together” thanks to his ties to Adams.
“It’s unreal, bro. My connections, even with (Adams), but underneath connections ... But bro, we gotta be all in,” Whitehead allegedly told Belmonte last spring, adding that he could convince the mayor to “sit down with whoever I need him to sit down with,” according to the court filing.
In his indictment, which was unsealed in December, prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office charged Whitehead squeezed Belmonte for a $500,000 investment in exchange for a promise that he’d use his Adams connections to secure favorable actions from the city government related to a real estate venture.
A spokesman for the mayor did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.
Adams, who has been close with Whitehead since his days as Brooklyn borough president, isn’t facing any accusations of wrongdoing. The feds have also stressed that Whitehead touted the promises of official actions from the mayor even though “he knew he could not obtain” them.
It was not previously known, though, what exactly Whitehead told Belmonte about the mayor, who has declined to completely distance himself from his pastor pal since his indictment.
In another previously unknown wrinkle, prosecutors wrote in last week’s filing they also caught Whitehead on tape last year saying, “I got guns in the church,” in reference to Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries, the location in Canarsie, Brooklyn where he preaches.
It’s unclear from the filing who Whitehead allegedly made the gun comment to, but prosecutors wrote it was the basis for the FBI to raid the church in June 2022.
Whitehead previously served time in prison over a 2008 identity theft conviction, and the prosecutors wrote that his claim about weapons prompted them to suspect he “was unlawfully in possession of a firearm” as a felon.
However, the FBI did not find any guns during the raid, they wrote. Whitehead, who’s known for wearing flashy clothes, riding in luxury cars and delivering sermons via Instagram, has not been charged with any weapons-related crimes.
Whitehead has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and is free on a $500,000 bond.
In a series of recent interviews with the Daily News, the pastor did not deny talking about guns at his church, but maintained his innocence and said the matter is “asked and answered” since the feds didn’t find any firearms.
About the charges he’s facing, Whitehead said he believes he’s the victim of “entrapment” and that Belmonte is a “con man” who “set me up” because of “my relationship with the mayor.”
A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
Whitehead’s lawyers have asked a Manhattan Federal Court judge to throw out evidence provided to the feds by Belmonte, painting him as an untrustworthy source, citing his past run-in with the laws, which includes a 2004 conviction for identity theft and larceny. So far, the judge has declined to act on the requests.
In his interviews with The News, Whitehead said he still sees Adams as a “mentor, like a big brother or an uncle or a father.”
But he said he doesn’t speak with the mayor regularly anymore because of what’s going on.
“I don’t need to talk to the mayor right now and I don’t need him to talk to me,” he said. “This is a witch hunt against the mayor, and I am collateral damage.”
