'Bling Bishop’ Lamor Whitehead Could Get Decade-Plus Jail Time: Feds

NEW YORK CITY — Lamor Whitehead, the “Bling Bishop” from Canarsie, could spend 12 and a half years in prison for scamming a woman out of her life savings and an attempted extortion —if federal prosecutors get their way, according to a recent court filing.

Whitehead, a pastor at Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries, has been in jail since May 20 after a judge determined one of his crimes required him to be put behind bars ahead of his July 1 sentencing.

Prosecutors in a June 10 memo argued that Whitehead has shown an “utter lack of remorse” for his crimes, and has lied under oath and to the public. They are asking for a 151-month sentence.

Whitehead did not just steal from fellow alleged criminals; he did not just steal from faceless financial institutions; he did not just steal from trusting parishioners. He stole from all of them. He stole constantly. And he did it all by himself. Even the money he brought in “legitimately” was, in truth, a product of his frauds,” prosecutors wrote.

Whitehead, in recent weeks, has asked for an effective sentence of four weeks in prison and supervised release due to the conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors pushed back, saying the leniency request “fails to address his repeated crimes.”

“The defendant’s complaints about the conditions of confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center are outdated, false, unsourced, or not specific to the defendant, but in any event are largely irrelevant here, as he has been detained only for a matter of weeks and will most likely be designated to a different facility after he is sentenced.”

Whitehead was found guilty back in March of scamming Pauline Anderson out of $90,000 and trying to extort money from a Bronx body shop owner as well as lying to the FBI, prosecutors said.

Anderson was scammed by Whitehead to invest her retirement money in a house that she thought he would buy and renovate for her, according to prosecutors. The Brooklyn pastor proceeded to take her money and spend it on luxury clothing and a BMW.

In the case of the Bronx body shop, Whitehead tried to get half a million dollars from the owner and in return he promised favors from Mayor Eric Adams, prosecutors said.

In addition, Whitehead violated a restraining order in an April 30 livestreamed service where he used a Bible psalm to intimidate Anderson, prosecutors argued in court filings. The pastor also flashed confidential case documents during the livestream.