NY Judge Sees No Remorse, Sentences Bergen 'Bling Bishop' To 9 Years For Swindling Followers

Lamor Whitehead of Paramus must serve a mandatory 7½ years following his conviction by a jury in lower Manhattan in March for swindling the life savings from a parishioners mother, among other crimes.

One by one, some of those who were financially destroyed spoke to Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lorna Schofield during the June 17 sentencing hearing.

Then it was Whitehead's turn.

Rather than express remorse, the disgraced pastor spoke of “wisdom, integrity and love” and name-checked city and state officials he’d befriended -- among them, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

That didn't sit well with the judge.

“I know you stated you’re remorseful," Schofield told Whitehead, "but I don’t see any remorse for your conduct.

"You don’t seem to have an appreciation of the impact of your crimes or, in some ways, the facts."

The judge said she found the evidence "frankly overwhelming” in a scheme in which Whitehead submitted bogus applications to fraudulently secure millions of dollars in loans.

She also said the separate parishioner ripoffs were strikingly familiar to crimes that Whitehead had been convicted of in state court decades ago.

Any single one of the federal convictions in New York “would warrant a substantial sentence," Schofield said.

Because there's no parole in the federal prison system, Whitehead must serve out 85% of his sentence before he'll be eligible for release. The judge also ordered him to pay $85,000 in restitution and to forfeit $95,000.

Defense attorney Dawn Florio said she would appeal.

Whitehead was convicted earlier this year of swindling the elderly mom of a parishioner from New Jersey out of her $90,000 life savings, among other counts.

Jurors also convicted him of using ties to Adams in an attempt to extort a business owner into loaning him $500,000 and of lying to hide a second cellphone from FBI agents as they closed in on him.

They needed only three hours of deliberations to do it.

GUILTY: ‘Bling Bishop’ From Bergen Convicted Of Swindling NJ Parishioner's Mom, More

Whitehead was initially released on bond, but Schofield subsequently revoked it and ordered U.S. marshals to take him into custody after prosecutors showed proof of allegations Whitehead later made against federal prosecutors, the FBI and his victims.

Whitehead disparaged and even threatened both the elderly woman he swindled and her son on social media.

The convicted pastor also violated a restraining order by revealing sealed documents on a livestream podcast called “Not Guilty,” prosecutors told the judge.

Whitehead's behavior posed a significant risk to the public, they argued.

Schofield not only agreed: She also bumped up Whitehead’s sentencing by two weeks to Monday.

SEE: Convicted ‘Bling Bishop’ From Bergen Jailed Ahead Of Sentencing

Whitehead first made headlines when three gunmen burst into his Tomorrow International Ministries church above a Haitian restaurant in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn and robbed him and his wife of an estimated $1 million worth of jewelry during a live-streamed service in July 2022.

The masked bandits pocketed a Rolex and a Cavalier watch -- each valued at $75,000 -- along with a $25,000 ring, among other valuables.

The video ended up going viral.

The FBI came calling in 2022.

Whitehead was already known to authorities. State prosecutors in New Jersey won a conviction against him in 2006 for buying cars and motorcycles with stolen identities.

Although sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, he was released for good behavior in 2013, records show. He founded his church soon after.

Whitehead then reportedly stopped making monthly payments on a Mercedes-Benz and Range Rover in 2019, leading to a $68,000 judgment against him in Superior Court in Hackensack.

He was also accused of bouncing a $164,000 check to the contractor who built his $1.6 million home for him in Paramus.

“Everybody thought that I was a villain," Whithead told parishioners in a live stream in December 2022, less than 24 hours before his eventual federal arrest, "but now they’re seeing I was anointed by God."

The bishop later claimed the FBI used a sketchy informant who once did bodywork on his wife's car to make the latest case against him.

SEE: 'Bling Bishop' From Bergen Accused Of Faking Docs To Finance Paramus Mansion: 'FBI Set Me Up'

"The feds didn’t bother me, and now all of a sudden, this white man set me up," Whitehead declared on the 'Way Up With Angela Yee' podcast in March of last year.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Greenwood told jurors earlier this year that Whitehead "lied, cheated and stole to keep up a wealthy appearance. When the lies caught up to him, he lied to the FBI."

Former nurse Pauline Anderson cried on the stand as she described how she trusted Whitehead with her $90,000 retirement savings to help buy her a house that he’d help her fix up because he was "a man of God."

“I believed him as the leader of his church," she told the jurors.

Anderson said she tried to get the money back but Whitehead kept blowing her off. She sued him in 2021. He countersued.

The FBI then got interested.

Agents soon learned that Whitehead blew the money on personal luxuries from Louis Vuitton, Footlocker and BMW, prosecutors said.

He also tried to get body shop owner Brandon Belmonte to lend him half a million dollars in return for favors from Adams, they said.

SEE: ‘Bling’ Bishop From Bergen Seized By FBI, Charged With Swindling Retiree Out Of $90,000

Testifying in his own defense, Whitehead claimed that the FBI wanted him to help "get the mayor of New York" but that he wouldn't snitch.

None of it washed with the jurors.

Anderson returned to court for Monday's sentencing, telling the judge she suffered emotional, physical and financial trauma -- leading to many sleepless nights -- from the experience.

“What I was left with was nothing," she told the judge, adding that Whitehead "broke my heart, my spirit and my soul.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wikstrom said Whitehead — who already had a string of convictions on his record -- abused the trust of parishioners and continued to rip unwitting victims off during the trial.

He also tormented others in lawsuits aimed at quieting them, authorities noted.“He purports to be a religious leader while stealing from people,” Wikstrom said. “It’s outrageous.”

Whitehead, for his part, asked the judge if she would make him the "poster child of another chance.”

She wouldn't.

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