The flamboyant preacher from Brooklyn, who made headlines earlier in the summer, after being robbed during Sunday service for possibly $1 million in jewelry, was arrested (again) for violently choking a woman while his most recent church service was being streamed. Like the first incident, this altercation also went viral.
On Sunday, Sept. 18, Bishop Lamor Miller Whitehead, Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministry designer-clothes-wearing pastor, attacked a female who attended the church service because he believed she was threatening him and his wife. During the over two-hour live-streamed service, the woman is seen approaching the minister expressing her disdain for him.
As she comes close to the preacher, who is dripped in a Christian Dior jacquard suit, he steps down from his pulpit and grabs her neck from behind. After the service was over, he was arrested for assault.
The cleric told the New York Daily News, “They lock me up in front of my children, in front of my wife, in front of my church. They publicly embarrassed me and then they drop all the charges after two hours and apologize to me.”
Whitehead claims there were actually two women, who came into the church, in a similar manner as the three male hoodlums that robbed him weeks prior. The women, according to his ministers, were “wannabe up-and-coming bloggers.”
“They came to my church to disrupt the service,” he said.
Reflecting on both scenarios, he said, the two came in “the same way it happened when my church got robbed.”
On Sunday, July 24, the Brooklyn pastor was robbed by three men who interrupted service, making him lie on the floor as they picked his pockets, took his rings, crosses, wife’s jewelry, and more.
Though a victim of a crime, Whitehead received significant backlash after aspects of his life came to surface. People look at his luxurious lifestyle and juxtaposed it with how small his church is. His social media shows him driving in expensive foreign cars, designer clothes, and huge houses.
However, his report to the police about what he lost during the robbery raised eyebrows.
A listing, according to the NYPD, says he lost the following: 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.
Days after the robbery, news emerged about his criminal past. The preacher, who is also related to rapper Foxy Brown, was previously locked up for fraud and is currently in a lawsuit where he is accused of stealing a former member, 56, life’s savings of $90,000.
In a lawsuit, filed by Pauline Anderson in 2021 in Brooklyn Supreme Court, he is accused of taking her money to invest in one of his firms.
The filing states that in November 2020 Anderson gave Whitehead the money in the form of a cashier’s check. In return, he would help rebuild her credit and give her $100 monthly allowances to pay for her living expenses and help her buy and renovate a house.
Whitehead only paid her the $100 one time in January of 2021.
Because he did not provide her with a receipt, she only had their exchanges to support her claim.
According to the complaint, “Mr. Whitehead fraudulently induced Ms. Anderson to liquidate her entire life savings to pay him the ‘investment’ of $90,000.00, promising to use the funds to purchase and renovate a house for her.”
It continued, “Ms. Anderson was instead left with nothing but a vague promise by Mr. Whitehead to pay the funds back in the future followed by an assertion that he had no further obligation to do so.”
Only a few text messages remain to support her claim and were submitted as exhibits to the lawsuit.
In one of the text messages, he says, he had invested the money and she would not be able to get a return anytime soon.
On May 19, 2021, he wrote in a text message, “And for the record, anything that was given to me is a Donation unless it’s attached to a contract! I was making investments, that’s what I Do!”
The latest incident seems to be connected to individuals who did not personally know the preacher.
The extended video explains what happened, saying he verbally identified both women, when at least one of the females started to scream.
“I was almost done with my preaching and these two young ladies came in and sat in the back,” he said.
The video from the livestream captured him saying to the women, “You want to come preach? Come on up here. I’m gonna make you famous.”
Footage also records the preacher abandoning the pulpit to walk in the direction of the two “troublemakers.” He then is heard instructing someone to get one of the women out, saying, “move her out of here.”
During the post-arrest interview, he contends, he was put on alert when the woman approached him, saying, “She came in the middle aisle and just [started] cussing me out, calling me all types of names, calling me all types of things.”
“She came back storming toward my wife and my 10-month-old baby,” he continued before saying, “she went toward my wife and that’s when I grabbed her.”
“I grabbed her and took her out of my church,” he said, describing how he blacked out. “All I could remember was the guys with the guns who put their gun in my baby’s face.”
After he assaulted the woman, he was heard yelling “Grab her! Grab her!”
The camera is stationary, so the viewer cannot see everything that is going on.
Detectives arrived at the church to arrest the bishop, taking him to Brooklyn’s 69th Precinct stationhouse. He was processed and sat in the facility for two hours.
When explaining the arrest, Whitehead said, “They put me in cuffs and I told them I wasn’t getting in and they grabbed me and picked me up and put me in the car. There were a lot of little kids in church that are frightened now — again. All the little babies in my church saw me get arrested, the ones that look up to me.”
Surprised that he was being arrested after grabbing the woman, he said, “All I want to do is preach the word of God and I end up in prison. They treated me like a criminal.”
Fortunately for him, according to the interview, the “Bling” preacher has friends in law enforcement and city government, including his mentor Mayor Eric Adams. He believes once the “higher-ups” heard about his incarceration, even on a Sunday, they sprang into action.
“They dropped all the charges and let me out,” Whitehead stated.
“You don’t get to arrest me and throw me in prison. They had me in a cell with someone with felony charges and let me out. It’s not going to stop here. If I was a rabbi, if I was a Catholic priest, they would have never done this,” he said, suggesting race may have been a reason why he was briefly locked up.
