Lamor Whitehead, the “Bling Bishop” of New York, sentenced to 9 years in prison

A New York pastor known as “Bling Bishop” will spend nearly a decade behind bars for financial crimes he vehemently denied committing.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced Monday that Bishop Lamor Whitehead was sentenced to nine years in prison for wire fraud, attempted extortion and making false statements to federal law enforcement agents.

Whitehead, pastor of Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Brooklyn, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $85,000 in restitution and a $95,000 fine.

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“Lamor Whitehead is a con artist who stole millions of dollars in a series of financial frauds and even stole from one of his own parishioners,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams. “He lied to federal agents and then again to the court during this trial. “Today’s sentence puts an end to Whitehead’s various schemes and reflects this office’s commitment to holding those who abuse their positions of trust to account.”

Whitehead's sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Lorna Schofield comes three months after his conviction for using $90,000 given to him by a parishioner he had sworn to help to buy a home to make a down payment for a $4.4 million mansion in New Jersey and for trying to force an auto body shop owner to give him $500,000 in exchange for promising access to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

The statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office regarding Whitehead's sentencing included additional details of the allegations against Whitehead taken directly from his indictment and trial evidence. The release says he falsely claimed he had millions of dollars in the bank and was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month by submitting an application for a $250,000 business loan.

Whitehead received millions of dollars in loans due to fraudulent loan applications similar to other financial institutions. Whitehead's accusations of lying to federal agents stem from his insistence to federal law enforcement officials executing a search warrant at his mansion that he did not possess any cell phones besides the one he had on him , although he has another cell phone.

Whitehead has always maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing, posting an Instagram story after his conviction, stating that “the story is not over.” Adding that “God is still God” and asserting that “they can all laugh and talk now,” he predicted that “Jesus will get the glory” and urged his followers to “stay tuned for this new chapter called… Truth and justification.

Whitehead's nickname, “the Bling Bishop”, comes from his extravagant lifestyle, which gained national attention after he was robbed at gunpoint in 2022. Several masked gunmen entered his church and stole jewelry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in front of a frightened congregation.

The conviction that is expected to send Whitehead to prison is not the pastor's first run-in with the law.

In 2006, he was arrested for carrying out a $2 million identity theft scheme and ended up serving five years in prison, before being released in 2013. Whitehead has also denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case, claiming he was “falsely convicted and arrested for a crime I did not commit.”