Robbed of $1M during a service this pastor wants to carry a gun in church
There is no bigger or longer running con than religion. Do not get me wrong. Many religious leaders have been a boon to their community. And many people of faith have honored the fundamental tenets of their religion and lived lives of piety, compassion, and charity. Unfortunately, those are not the people who get a lot of air time. The two faces of Christianity in America today are the power-loving bigots and the money-grubbing, snake-oil salesmen.
The bigots want, in the name of God, to oppress women, the LGTBQ+ community, the poor, immigrants, and others with little power. And the con artists want your money. Often they are the same people.
Take Bishop Lamor Whitehead. He is the Pastor of the Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches — a grandiosely-named organization as there are only two ‘churches’. One is a storefront in Canarsie, Brooklyn, NY and the other appears to be a party rental space in Queens, NY. During the July 24th Sunday services at the Brooklyn facility, armed robbers stole $1 million worth of jewelry off him and his wife. Which, according to the police report, included:
A $390,000 Cuban link chain, a $200,000 men’s gold chain, a $125,000 wedding ring, a $75,000 Rolex, a $75,000 Cavalier watch, a $50,000 wedding ring, a $25,000 Episcopal ruby and diamond ring, a $25,000 Episcopal diamond ring, a $25,000 pair of earrings, a $20,000 diamond and emerald cross, a $20,000 Episcopal ring, a $15,000 Episcopal cross and a $10,000 Episcopal gold cross.
I cannot say that all, or even some, of the money for this excess, came from the congregation. But it is fair to speculate. And it is also reasonable to wonder how Whitehead paid for his Rolls Royce. His personal expenditures have been noted by the press before. And he even blamed the media’s stories of his bling for the robbery.
Whitehead says his prosperity is due to real estate investments. And he takes no salary from the church. Which is fine - except if the church buys a diamond ring and Whitehead wears it, he’s getting compensated very well for someone with no salary. Jeff Bezos’ salary as CEO of Amazon is $81,840. But he seems to have put some money aside.
These deceptive claims, along with some fancy accounting, allow supposedly cash-poor preachers to amass enormous personal fortunes. Kenneth Copeland’s net worth is estimated at $300 million and may be as high as $760 million.
Any money manager will tell you the first million is the hardest. After that, you let your money work for you by diversifying your income streams. Whitehead is familiar with the philosophy. And claims he keeps his personal business and financial dealings separate from the church. He also says he offers his members free financial training so they can learn to prosper as he has, saying
“It’s about having multiple streams of income. Everybody wants to box me in.”
So what are his other streams of income? It is not an easy question to answer. But Whitehead was convicted in 2006 of a $2 million scam involving identity theft used to establish fraudulent lines of credit. He served five years. He claims he is now on the straight and narrow path of financial probity. Is he? The evidence suggests not.
One of his congregants Pauline Anderson, 56, accused Whitehead of convincing her to liquidate her life savings and pay him a $90,000 “investment” in November 2020 with the promise that he would buy and renovate a home for her. The money has disappeared. There is no home. And she is suing him.
His supposed real estate holdings also appear to be fiction. As ‘Curbed’ reported
“On Instagram, he boasts about “buying blocks,” posing (in, yes, a Fendi sweater) in front of a half-block-long, 48-unit apartment complex in Hartford, Connecticut, that his LLC, Whitehead Estates, bought in 2021. In January, he was back in front of the same apartment complex, advertising real-estate classes, But Whitehead Estates doesn’t appear to have a website, and the sign-up for the classes was a church email address.”
It is pure grift in plain sight. And he is not the first person to run a scam real estate 'school'.
And now this miserable man wants New York to allow him to carry a gun despite his felony. Saying,
“They need to pass a law expeditiously that pastors of houses of worship — anyone on the ecclesiastical staff — need to be able to have permits for firearms. If the teachers can have it, we should be able to have it.
No matter if we have a record, it should be exempt. So we should be able to bear arms as the Constitution says.”
It does not occur to him that keeping the bling in a secure place, rather than flashing it in a church, maybe the better strategy. It would also make him appear a better follower of the wealth-shunning Jesus. And prevent the congregation from having to duck a hail of bullets.
Besides, he can always pray for God’s protection.