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9 months ago
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Lamor Whitehead, a Brooklyn preacher nicknamed the "Bling Bishop" for his ostentatious clothes and flashy cars, claimed Tuesday that his conviction for defrauding an elderly parishioner and trying to extort a business owner was part of a larger scheme by the FBI of trying to make him become an informant against 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' campaign has faced 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 in the caption of the video.
"This was politically driven," Whitehead said. "This was about Mayor Eric Adams."
Whitehead was found guilty on five counts, including wire fraud, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal law enforcement agents, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.
Whitehead was convicted of inducing Pauline Anderson to invest around $90,000 of her retirement savings with him by promising to use the money to help her buy a home.
Instead, prosecutors say Whitehead splashed the money on luxury goods from Louis Vuitton and Foot Locker as well as car payments. When Anderson demanded to be paid back, Whitehead lied to avoid returning the money, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Whitehead also extorted Bronx auto body shop owner Brandon Belmonte for $5,000 and then attempted to convince the businessman to lend him $500,000 and give him a stake in certain real estate transactions in return for favorable actions from Adams, even though prosecutors say Whitehead knew he could not obtain the favors he promised, prosecutors said.
Whitehead, of Paramus, New Jersey, faces decades in prison.
"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 said.
"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 appeal.
He said the FBI showed up to his home on June 8 looking for information on the mayor and told him he was not under arrest but that they had a search warrant to take his phone.
"And what they said to me, was, 'we don't want you, we want the mayor of New York [City],'" he said. "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 said he is innocent. The FBI investigation into Adams burst into the public domain in November when the home of one of his campaign consultants was raided.
The FBI told Fox News Digital it would not be commenting on Whitehead's claims.
In a July 2021 Instagram post, Whitehead posted a collage of photographs of himself with Adams before Adams assumed office, writing, "Congratulations to my mentor, friend and someone who I can say really help me become a man!"
Whitehead had sought to follow in Adams’ footsteps by becoming the Brooklyn borough president. But Adams would not endorse Whitehead and admonished him for using his name in a "misleading" campaign ad, according to the New York Times, citing text messages prosecutors showed during the trial.
Whitehead sought Belmonte to give him a loan of $500,000 while promising him access to Adams.
One of Whitehead’s lawyers played down his client's relationship with Adams at the trial, saying that he could get a meeting with Adams "faster than most people" – and that statement, he contended, was true. But prosecutors also showed messages from Whitehead to Adams in early 2022 that went unanswered, the New York Times reports.
Adams told reporters last month that legal 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 today, Adams said he had no part in the investigation and that prosecutors in the case said there were "no benefits coming from government."
Pauline Anderson, meanwhile, said she trusted Whitehead to buy her a house since she could not afford one due to low credit.
"He was a man of God," she said, according to the New York Times. "I believed him as the leader of his church."
Whitehead has previous criminal convictions for identity theft and grand larceny, which resulted in a five-year prison stint.
He became a bishop when he founded the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in 2013.
The Brooklyn preacher owns a $1.6 million home in Paramus, New Jersey, and an apartment in Hartford, Connecticut.
Whitehead has been free on $500,000 bail since his arrest, which came only months after he was the victim of a robbery when $1 million in jewelry was stolen from him by gunmen who surprised him during a church service.
Fox News’ Maria Paronich, Chris Pandolfo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
