“Bling” Bishop Lamor Whitehead is headed to trial on fraud and extortion charges early next year, a judge ruled Monday.
Manhattan Federal Judge Lorna Schofield issued a Feb. 26 trial date in Whitehead’s federal case.
“Our client is looking forward to the trial, so he can clear his name,” Whitehead’s attorney Dawn Florio said.
Whitehead, 45, is facing trial on charges alleging he extorted a businessman, swindled a retired parishioner, lied to the FBI and falsified bank documents.
Multiple allegations in the December 2022 indictment include the pastor persuading one of his parishioners to invest $90,000 of her retirement savings to buy a home and then using the cash to splurge on designer clothing and other luxury goods.
Whitehead, who has been close with Mayor Adams since his days as Brooklyn borough president, allegedly flaunted that connection when he sought to squeeze $500,000 out of Bronx businessman Brandon Belmonte, the feds charge. Adams is not implicated in the case.
“It’s unreal, Bro. My connections, even with [Adams], but underneath connections … But Bro, we gotta be all in,” Whitehead is quoted in court papers telling Belmonte in spring 2022, promising he could make Adams “sit down with whoever I need him to sit down with.”
Prosecutors included the conversation in papers filed in March, which also saw Whitehead claiming, “I got guns in the church,” referencing Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Canarsie, Brooklyn, where he preaches, prompting an FBI raid in June 2022.
The feds hit Whitehead with a new fraud charge in March, alleging he submitted fake bank documents in applying for a loan online, representing that he had $2 million in a business account that had less than $10.
Known for his flashy clothes, luxury cars and delivering sermons via Instagram, Whitehead is out on a $500,000 bond. He previously told the Daily News he considers the mayor a “mentor, like a big brother or an uncle or a father.”
Manhattan U.S. attorney spokesman Nick Biase declined to comment.
