Photograph: Johnny Nunez/Getty Visuals
Bishop Lamor Whitehead, the flashy Canarsie pastor ideal known for his friendship with Mayor Eric Adams and his strange role in the Q prepare shooter’s surrender, promises he was robbed of $1 million in jewellery all through a sermon very last 7 days. “When I noticed them arrive into the sanctuary with their guns, I informed everybody, ‘Get down,’” Whitehead said in an Instagram movie describing the alleged theft. “I did not know if they wanted to shoot the church up.” As he tells it, the thieves demanded that Whitehead and his wife transform more than all their jewellery, which provided a $75,000 Rolex check out, a $75,000 Cavalier enjoy, a $25,000 Episcopal ruby-and-diamond ring, and a $25,000 Episcopal diamond ring, among the other gem-encrusted baubles, according to the New York Post.
The jewelry and his part at the Leaders of Tomorrow International Church (and the occasional fugitive negotiation) aside, Whitehead also dabbles in true estate. On Instagram, he features about “buying blocks,” posing (in, yes, a Fendi sweater) in entrance of a half-block-extensive, 48-device apartment intricate in Hartford, Connecticut, that his LLC, Whitehead Estates, purchased in 2021. In January, he was back again in entrance of the exact same condominium advanced, advertising actual-estate classes, But Whitehead Estates does not show up to have a web-site, and the indicator-up for the lessons was a church e mail address.
That’s not the only dilemma about his holdings. When The City recently visited Whitehead’s household in Paramus, New Jersey, it observed a detect taped to the door that he was in default for a $4.5 million loan he’d taken out on the Hartford house, which is positioned at 150–180 Earle Street, in the rundown North East community. The handle detailed on that loan is an apartment in a hire-stabilized elaborate in Prospect–Lefferts Gardens that was obtained by a seemingly unaffiliated LLC in 2012. At the time, Whitehead was in Sing Sing, serving a 5-calendar year sentence for his involvement in a $2 million identification-theft rip-off.
Last week, The City reported that a parishioner was suing Whitehead for thieving her life savings of $90,000, which she’d entrusted to him to assist her invest in a property. She’d had issues finding a property loan mainly because of bad credit Whitehead experienced aided her son come across a spot to stay, and he encouraged her to look for Whitehead’s enable. But the pastor, after using her income, allegedly told her he was treating it as a donation to his campaign for Brooklyn borough president. Very last summer time, he unintentionally emailed her son a agreement to order a $4.4 million mansion in Saddle River, New Jersey, even though the sale never ever went by means of.
What does he individual, then? A a lot more modest (by comparison) residence in Paramus, New Jersey — a 6-bed room McMansion that he obtained for $1.64 million in 2019. It has a double-height residing home, heaps of cherry-stained wood, and a most important rest room with a Jacuzzi tub overlooking the property.
Just after the theft, the pastor posted a prolonged Instagram movie defending his purchasing patterns: “It’s not about me becoming flashy,” he mentioned. “It’s about me acquiring what I want to order. It’s my prerogative to purchase what I want to order.” He also blamed the media for publicizing his way of life past calendar year, when he experimented with to leverage his romantic relationship with Adams to negotiate the surrender of alleged subway shooter Andrew Abdullah.