[ad_1]
Lamor Whitehead, a Brooklyn preacher nicknamed the “Bling Bishop” for his ostentatious garments and flashy vehicles, claimed Tuesday that his conviction for defrauding an aged parishioner and making an attempt to extort a enterprise proprietor was half of a bigger scheme by the FBI of making an attempt to make him turn into an informant in opposition to New York City Mayor Adams.
Whitehead, 45, posted a video message to his 1.3 million followers on Tuesday from inside his Rolls-Royce, saying he refused to dish on Adams to the FBI. Adams’ marketing campaign has confronted a federal corruption investigation.
“This wasn’t about me…. I was not going to be an informant for the FBI against NYC Mayor Eric Adams,” Whitehead wrote within the caption of the video.
“This was politically driven,” Whitehead mentioned. “This was about Mayor Eric Adams.”
Lamor Whitehead, left, with Eric Adams, then Brooklyn borough president, strolling at the West Indian Parade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Sept. 5, 2016. (Stefan Jeremiah)
Whitehead was discovered responsible on 5 counts, together with wire fraud, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal legislation enforcement brokers, in accordance to the U.S. Attorney’s Office within the Southern District of New York.
Whitehead was convicted of inducing Pauline Anderson to make investments round $90,000 of her retirement financial savings with him by promising to use the cash to assist her purchase a house.
Instead, prosecutors say Whitehead splashed the cash on luxurious items from Louis Vuitton and Foot Locker in addition to automobile funds. When Anderson demanded to be paid again, Whitehead lied to keep away from returning the cash, the U.S. Attorney’s Office mentioned.
Whitehead additionally extorted Bronx auto physique store proprietor Brandon Belmonte for $5,000 after which attempted to persuade the businessman to lend him $500,000 and provides him a stake in sure actual property transactions in return for favorable actions from Adams, though prosecutors say Whitehead knew he couldn’t receive the favors he promised, prosecutors mentioned.
Whitehead, of Paramus, New Jersey, faces many years in jail.
“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead, left, was convicted of wire fraud on Monday however claims that the trial arose after he refused to turn into an FBI informant in opposition to Mayor Eric Adams, proper. (Instagram/ @iambishopwhitehead)
“As a unanimous jury found, Lamor Whitehead abused the trust placed in him by a parishioner, tried to obtain a fraudulent loan using fake bank records, bullied a businessman for $5,000, tried to defraud him out of far more than that, and lied to federal agents,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams mentioned.
“Whitehead’s reprehensible lies and criminal conduct have caught up with him, as he now stands convicted of five federal crimes and faces time in prison.”
Whitehead claimed he was “targeted” and vowed to enchantment.
He mentioned the FBI confirmed up to his residence on June 8 in search of data on the mayor and instructed him he was not beneath arrest however that that they had a search warrant to take his cellphone.
“And what they said to me, was, ‘we don’t want you, we want the mayor of New York [City],'” he mentioned. “And just because I was not going to be a federal informant… the FBI said they [were] going to make my life a living hell, and that’s what you guys are seeing.”
Whitehead mentioned he’s harmless. The FBI investigation into Adams burst into the general public area in November when the house of one of his marketing campaign consultants was raided.
The FBI instructed Fox News Digital it could not be commenting on Whitehead’s claims.
Bishop Lamor Whitehead speaks throughout a information convention in Brooklyn on July 29, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service through Getty Images)
In a July 2021 Instagram submit, Whitehead posted a collage of images of himself with Adams earlier than Adams assumed workplace, writing, “Congratulations to my mentor, friend and someone who I can say really help me become a man!”
Whitehead had sought to observe in Adams’ footsteps by turning into the Brooklyn borough president. But Adams wouldn’t endorse Whitehead and admonished him for utilizing his title in a “misleading” marketing campaign advert, in accordance to the New York Times, citing textual content messages prosecutors confirmed through the trial.
Whitehead sought Belmonte to give him a mortgage of $500,000 whereas promising him entry to Adams.
One of Whitehead’s legal professionals performed down his consumer’s relationship with Adams at the trial, saying that he might get a gathering with Adams “faster than most people” – and that assertion, he contended, was true. But prosecutors additionally confirmed messages from Whitehead to Adams in early 2022 that went unanswered, the New York Times stories.
Adams instructed reporters final month that authorized filings by the prosecution “stated that clearly [Whitehead] did not have authorization and there was no connectivity to the actions of [the] mayor or borough president.”
At a press briefing earlier in the present day, Adams mentioned he had no half within the investigation and that prosecutors within the case mentioned there have been “no benefits coming from government.”
Pauline Anderson, in the meantime, mentioned she trusted Whitehead to purchase her a home since she couldn’t afford one due to low credit score.
“He was a man of God,” she mentioned, in accordance to the New York Times. “I believed him as the leader of his church.”
“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead claims that his trial arose after he refused to turn into an FBI informant in opposition to Mayor Eric Adams. (Instagram/@iambishopwhitehead)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Whitehead has earlier prison convictions for id theft and grand larceny, which resulted in a five-year jail stint.
He turned a bishop when he based the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in 2013.
The Brooklyn preacher owns a $1.6 million residence in Paramus, New Jersey, and an house in Hartford, Connecticut.
Whitehead has been free on $500,000 bail since his arrest, which got here solely months after he was the sufferer of a theft when $1 million in jewellery was stolen from him by gunmen who shocked him throughout a church service.
Fox News’ Maria Paronich, Chris Pandolfo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source hyperlink