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‘Bling Bishop’ Lamor Whitehead convicted of frauds including ripping off

parishioner’s mom

At 922 Remsen Avenue for press conference with Bishop Lamor Whitehead in Brooklyn on Friday July 29, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)

By Molly Crane-Newman | mcranenewman@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News

PUBLISHED: March 11, 2024 at 8:03 p.m. | UPDATED: March 11, 2024 at 8:41 p.m.

“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead was convicted Monday of stealing the life savings of a parishioner’s
mother and other fraudulent schemes at his Manhattan trial.

Jurors found Whitehead, 46, guilty of wire fraud, attempted extortion, lying to the FBI and related
charges stemming from three separate schemes after a trial that lasted just two weeks in Manhattan
Federal Court.

The charges carry up to 45 years in prison.

Whitehead, a self-described “mentee” of Mayor Adams who’d pleaded not guilty to all charges, could
not immediately be reached for comment.

“The defendant was trusted by many in his community. He was the bishop of a small church in
Brooklyn and a self-described businessman. He was a friend to the mayor of New York City,” Assistant
U.S. Attorney Jessica Greenwood said in last month in opening remarks at Manhattan Federal Court .

“The defendant abused that trust by lying again and again. He lied about how much money he had. He
lied about his business plans. And he lied about having influence with powerful people. All with the
goal of getting money and property to fund his extravagant lifestyle.”

Whitehead, who ran a Canarsie, Brooklyn, church called Leaders of Tomorrow International
Ministries, targeted the elderly single mom of one of his parishioners, along with a money lending
company and a Bronx businessman.

“The defendant convinced this woman, who had spent her career working as a nurse, to give him
$90,000 of her life savings,” Greenwood said Feb. 26. “He promised to use the money to buy a fixer-
pper home that he would renovate for her to live in. And she believed the defendant — a man, who by
that time, had become a mentor and spiritual adviser to her son.”

The headline-grabbing pastor instead spent the cash on himself, with the funds going to designer
clothing and a BMW payment.

As the victim’s son tried to get back his mom’s savings, Whithead said in a text he was asking God to
“exact vengeance” upon the man.

A second scheme saw Whitehead threaten the owner of an auto body shop in the Bronx, Brandon
Belmonte, attempting to extort him for $5,000 after a repair job. Prosecutors said Whitehead further
lied to Belmonte to attempt to get his name on a $500,000 real estate deal, promising favors from
Mayor Adams in exchange that could make them millions.

Ina third plot, Whitehead, who was arrested in December, drew up phony bank statements to get a
$250,000 loan, purporting to show he had millions in a company account that had less than $6.

A spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams declined to comment.

Whitehead abruptly started making city headlines after Adams, who’s not been accused of any
wrongdoing in connection with the pastor’s case, took office in January 2022. Along with
unsuccessfully trying to facilitate the surrender of an accused subway killer in May 2022 — drawing
authorities’ wrath — Whitehead himself was robbed in a caught-on-camera stickup at one of his
services last June.

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2024 March 11

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