This week Bishop Whitehead, who favors designer suits and expensive cars, was convicted of defrauding an elderly woman out of her retirement savings for his personal expenses...
From The NY Post
Brooklyn’s notoriously flashy pastor Lamor Whitehead was convicted Monday of fraud, attempted extortion and lying to the FBI for bilking an elderly woman out of her retirement savings and using his ties with the mayor to try to extort a Bronx business owner.
A Manhattan jury found Whitehead — who’s known for wearing designer suits, ostentatious jewelry and bold eyewear — guilty of all counts, including wire fraud, attempted wire fraud and attempted extortion.
The church leader scammed Pauline Anderson, the elderly mother of a parishioner, out of $90,000 and tried to extort thousands more from a Bronx auto body shop owner with promises to obtain “official favors” from Mayor Eric Adams on his behalf, federal prosecutors said.
Prosecutors opened the trial last month by calling Whitehead a “conman who told lie after lie to victim after victim.”
Whitehead, 45, convinced Anderson to invest the massive sum for a house he claimed he would buy for her and fix up.
Instead, he blew the cash on personal expenses, including purchases at Louis Vuitton and Footlocker and on BMW car payments, prosecutors said.
The pastor also tried to get auto body shop owner Brandon Belmonte to lend him $500,000 in return for favors from the mayor — who Whitehead claimed was like a mentor to him and would “do whatever I wanted.”
“[Whitehead] lied, cheated and stole to keep up a wealthy appearance,” Prosecutor Jessica Greenwood said last month.
He “used lies and threats to get money from his victims and when lies caught up to him, he lied to the FBI,” added Greenwood.
The Bishop has vowed to appeal.
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