‘Bling Bishop’ Lamor Whitehead clad in jail garb as he learns his fate for stealing NYC woman’s retirement fund
“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead has gone from wearing ice to being put on ice for a long time.
The famously flashy Brooklyn pastor, who once bragged that Mayor Eric Adams mentored him, was sentenced to nine years in prison Monday after a jury found him guilty of stealing a parishioner’s mother’s retirement fund and other crimes.
The convicted fraudster — known for wearing designer suits, gaudy jewelry and driving a Rolls Royce — sported muted tan jail garb in Manhattan federal court while giving a rambling speech in which he claimed to have “remorse” for his victims.
But Whitehead didn’t take responsibility for swindling them, and the judge didn’t buy his mea culpa.
“I don’t see any remorse for your conduct,” Judge Lorna Schofield told Whitehead before delivering his fate.
“You don’t seem to have an appreciation for the impact of your crimes, or, in some ways, the facts.”
Whitehead, 45, was convicted in March of scamming Pauline Anderson, a 58-year-old nurse and the mother of one of his flock at Canarsie’s Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries, out of $90,000 she’d given him to invest in a house he’d claimed he would buy for her and fix up.
Instead, the flamboyant pastor — who became known as the “bling bishop” — blew the cash on personal expenses, including purchases at Louis Vuitton and on BMW car payments, prosecutors said.
Addressing the court Monday, Anderson teared up while describing the brutal toll left on her by Whitehead’s theft, which she said drained the entire sum she’d saved up for retirement.
Whitehead “broke my heart, my spirt and my soul,” she said.
Anderson’s son Rasheed, 30, added that the convicted scammer’s theft had a “devastating impact” on his family.
“I was used and taken advantage of, and because of that, every day I have to see my mother suffer,” he said in court.
Whitehead was also convicted of attempted extortion for touting his alleged ties to the mayor to get an auto body shop owner to lend him $500,000 in return for “official favors” from Hizzoner.
And he was found guilty of lying to a bank to get a $250,000 loan and of fibbing to FBI agents when they raided his New Jersey mansion.
Whitehead knew at the time that he could not actually obtain the favors that he promised, prosecutors said. Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing in the case.
“Whitehead did not just steal from fellow alleged criminals; he did not just steal from faceless financial institutions; he did not just steal from trusting parishioners. He stole from all of them,” prosecutors from Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams’ office wrote in a pre-sentence court filing.
“To the extent Whitehead received public attention and had followers, it was because of his flashy, expensive, luxury lifestyle — his mansion, his Rolls-Royce, his expensive suits. All of those things, too, were funded by his crimes,” the feds said.
With his feet chained together and court marshals looking on, Whitehead spoke for around 20 minutes Monday at a podium set up in the courtroom, maintaining his innocence and calling himself a “pillar of the community.”
“As far as remorse, I’m very remorseful,” he claimed. “I hate to see anyone hurt.”
The fallen bishop name-dropped city and state officials he claimed to have worked with in recent years on youth mentorship and Thanksgiving turkey giveaway programs, including Adams, NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and state Attorney General Letitia James.
None of those officials were present in court — although Adams said, “Bishop Whitehead is in my prayers, and I wish the best for him,” when asked about the sentence at an unrelated press conference.
Whitehead’s attorney, Dawn Florio, asked the judge to sentence him to supervised release.
But Schofield noted a history of “crimes of dishonesty.”
Before starting his church in 2013, Whitehead had already served five years in prison after being convicted of a separate $2 million identity theft scheme that involved buying luxury cars after taking out lines of credit in other people’s names, officials said.
The pastor made national news in July 2022 when he and his wife were robbed at gunpoint while he was in the middle of delivering a livestreamed sermon. Whitehead is now likely suffering from “post-traumatic stress disorder” from the episode, his lawyer Florio said.
The judge jailed Whitehead in May after ruling that his attempted extortion conviction was a “crime of violence” that required for him to be locked up.
Whitehead also flashed confidential case documents in an April 30 livestreamed service and used a Bible psalm to try to intimidate Pauline Anderson, prosecutors alleged.
“Touch not my anointed,” Whitehead allegedly said at the time, quoting Psalms 105, the feds said.
— Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
