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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.
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“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.”
BROOKLYN’S ‘BLING BISHOP’ LAMOR WHITEHEAD DENIES STEALING FROM PARISHIONER’S MOTHER ON DAY 1 OF FRAUD TRIAL
Lamor Whitehead, left, with Eric Adams, then Brooklyn borough president, walking at the West Indian Parade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Sept. 5, 2016.(Stefan Jeremiah)
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.
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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.
NYC BISHOP ROBBED OF $1M IN JEWELRY MID-SERMON FILES $20M LAWSUITS AGAINST SOCIAL MEDIA CRITICS CLAIMING HOAX
Whitehead, of Paramus, New Jersey, faces decades in prison.
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“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead, left, was convicted of wire fraud on Monday but claims that the trial arose after he refused to become an FBI informant against Mayor Eric Adams, right.(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 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.
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“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.
Bishop Lamor Whitehead speaks during a news conference in Brooklyn on July 29, 2022.(Theodore Parisienne/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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!”
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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.”
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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.”
“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead claims that his trial arose after he refused to become an FBI informant against Mayor Eric Adams.(Instagram/@iambishopwhitehead)
Whitehead has previous criminal convictions for identity theft and grand larceny, which resulted in a five-year prison stint.
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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.
Three people suffered injuries in a two-vehicle collision early Tuesday morning in Hooksett, New Hampshire.Courtesy of New Hampshore State
Three people suffered serious injuries Tuesday in a two-vehicle crash in Hooksett, N.H., police said.
The head-on collision happened around 5:40 a.m. on Interstate 293 northbound, State Police said.
Police said that Timothy Hubbard, 43, of Rome, Maine, was traveling south when he lost control of his car and crossed the median into oncoming traffic, police said.
Hubbard, his passenger, and the other driver were taken to hospitals to be treated for serious injuries, police said. The injures were not believed to be life-threatening.
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Police said speed was believed to be a factor in the crash, which is under investigation.
Hannah Goeke can be reached at hannah.goeke@globe.com.
For Nora Corthren, the work goes far beyond organizing events or telling stories. It’s about helping people see themselves in hockey.
As the NHL’s Manager of Content, Audience Development, and Social Impact, Corthren works at the crossroads of storytelling and community engagement, helping shine a spotlight on initiatives that make our game of hockey more welcoming and inclusive. From Pride programming to the Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award and Hockey Fights Cancer, her role focuses on highlighting the people and organizations making a difference throughout the hockey world.
Over the past four years, Corthren has witnessed meaningful growth across the sport.
“It really has been wonderful to just see the hockey world continue to grow and develop and become more welcoming and more diverse and more inclusive,” she said.
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Much of that progress comes from grassroots organizations working to create safe and welcoming spaces for players and fans from all backgrounds. Corthren’s job often involves identifying those stories and using the NHL’s platform to amplify them.
“I think it’s something that a lot of people who do the grassroots work of trying to make the game a more inclusive and welcoming space, they don’t do it for the attention,” she said. “They very much do it for the impact.”
That ability to elevate organizations and individuals making a difference has become one of the most rewarding parts of her work.
Among the initiatives closest to Corthren’s heart is the NHL’s continued involvement in Pride celebrations, including the annual New York City Pride March. For years, the league has marched alongside local hockey organizations and teams from across the New York metropolitan area, including the New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, New York Sirens, and New York Rangers.
For Corthren, the importance of that presence cannot be overstated. Seeing the NHL shield, the NHL teams’ logos, and even, yes, NJ Devil, are important parts of representation to a marginalized community.
QUAKERTOWN, Pa. (WPVI) — When the world’s top soccer players take the field in Philadelphia, the goals they aim for will have already been crafted in Pennsylvania.
Kwik Goal, a family-run company based in Quakertown, is the official goal maker for U.S. Soccer and supplies equipment for the FIFA World Cup.
Inside the company’s test area, workers check the strength of nets and frames.
President and CEO Anthony Caruso says the goal shown in the testing zone is the same model that will be used during the tournament.
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Kwik Goal has been building soccer equipment for decades, but its story began far from Pennsylvania.
Caruso said the company started 30 years ago on Long Island, New York, when his uncle needed a portable goalpost for coaching.
“My uncle had the need for a portable goalpost. He was coaching my youngest cousin,” Caruso said.
His father stepped in to help.
“My father took out a tape measure. He went to a tube house, bought some pieces of aluminum, made this gold frame, and scrounged up a net somewhere,” he said. “And I was in welding school, and I could weld aluminum. So this prototype was built, and my uncle took it out to the field.”
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The company later moved to Pennsylvania.
“Here we are today. We moved here in November of ’88 after being on Long Island from our inception. And we’ve been here ever since,” said Caruso.
Today, Kwik Goal operates out of four buildings and produces about 7,000 goals each year.
Its reputation for quality led to a partnership with the U.S. men’s national team three decades ago, followed by the U.S. women’s national team.
“We supply all their training sites, and actually, the new facility that they just built in Georgia, we did all the equipment for that,” Caruso said.
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The World Cup, however, is the company’s biggest stage. In addition to manufacturing the FIFA game-day goals, Kwik Goal also produces the portable and pre-game models used throughout the tournament.
“This is a portable goal that mimics the game goals here, that are on the practice fields and what they’ll be using at the 60 training sites,” Caruso said. “And then this goal here that we have in the back is actually what we call a pre-game goal. So when they warm the teams up before the tournament, the day of the game on the field, before that, before the game, they actually bring this goal out.”
For employees, seeing their work on the global stage is a career highlight.
“Well, it is the pinnacle of my career,” one worker said.
“There’s a great amount of pride here at Quick Goal, and everybody who’s been here. We have a lot of long-term employees, and they’re just thrilled to be a part of this project,” said Caruso.
