31°
Federal jurors in lower Manhattan convicted Lamor Whitehead of Paramus two months ago of swindling the elderly mom of a parishioner from New Jersey out of her $90,000 life savings, among other counts.
They also found him guilty of using ties to New York City Mayor Eric 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
Convicted of all counts, Whitehead, 45, was ordered released by a federal judge who scheduled sentencing for July.
U.S. District Court Judge Lorna Schofield subsequently revoked Whitehead’s bond 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 government said.
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.
“I urge you to take action,” an assistant U.S. attorney from the Southern District wrote in petitioning the judge. “Mr. Whitehead is not taking accountability for his actions and must stop this behavior immediately.”
Schofield not only agreed: She also bumped up Whitehead’s sentencing by two weeks to June 17.
Defense lawyer Dawn Florio said Monday that she and her client were “deeply saddened” by the turn of events.
Whitehead argued his case before the judge in lower Manhattan last week and also filed a formal challenge to his detention, saying that it “would be devastating to take me away from my two 16-year-old children, my nine-year-old daughter, and my two-year-old baby girl.”
He's technically looking at 45 years behind bars, but it likely will be closer to a quarter to a third of that once federal sentencing formulas are applied.
One thing is certain: Unless he becomes terminally ill, Whitehead will have to serve out 85% of whatever term of incarceration he receives because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
Whitehead 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.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Bordentown and receive free news updates.
