Fraud fed Brooklyn preacher’s flashy life style

NEW YORK (AP) — A Brooklyn preacher known for his near friendship with New York City’s mayor and a earlier stint at the rear of bars was indicted Monday on rates he plundered a parishioner’s retirement financial savings to bankroll his flashy way of life and extorted a businessman by falsely professing he could lean on town connections to make “millions” together.

Lamor Miller-Whitehead — a Rolls Royce-driving bishop who produced headlines in July when armed bandits crashed his church support and robbed him of $1 million in jewelry — is charged with wire fraud, extortion and generating content wrong statements for allegedly lying to FBI brokers by denying he had a next mobile phone. The wire fraud and extortion fees each and every have a greatest punishment of up to 20 a long time in prison.

Miller-Whitehead’s “campaign of fraud and deceit stops now,” Manhattan U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams mentioned.

Miller-Whitehead, 45, formed the Leaders of Tomorrow Worldwide Ministries in 2013 after serving a 5-calendar year jail sentenced for id theft and grand larceny in a scenario that he promises was the final result of an illegal conviction. Regardless of preaching in Brooklyn, he lives in a $1.6 million residence in Paramus, New Jersey, documents demonstrate. He also owns apartment properties in Hartford, Connecticut.

Miller-Whitehead was envisioned to arraigned on the new costs Monday afternoon in a federal court docket in Manhattan.

“Bishop Lamor Whitehead is not guilty of these rates,” defense attorney Dawn Florio reported. “He will be vigorously defending these allegations. He feels that he is becoming focused and currently being turned into a villain from a target.”

Mayor Eric Adams, a former law enforcement captain who grew near to Miller-Whitehead although serving as Brooklyn’s borough president, reported: “I’ve used many years enforcing the law and be expecting everybody to adhere to it. I have also dedicated my lifetime to aiding individuals with troubled pasts. Although these allegations are troubling, I will withhold further remark until finally the procedure reaches its last summary.”

Tale proceeds

Miller-Whitehead is accused of bilking victims with threats and wrong guarantees of a better life and major expense returns. Miller-Whitehead took the income “with no intention of investing it, returning it, or enriching the victims,” the indictment said. Prosecutors did not implicate Adams and did not mention Miller-Whitehead’s ties to him.

In one particular scenario, mirroring a civil lawsuit filed previous year, Miller-Whitehead allegedly defrauded a parishioner out of $90,000 in retirement financial savings by falsely promising to aid her uncover a residence and commit the remainder in his true estate business enterprise. Alternatively, prosecutors explained, Miller-Whitehead utilized the revenue to get hundreds of pounds in luxury items and garments.

In the lawsuit, the parishioner alleges Miller-Whitehead informed her he considered the funds not as an investment decision, but a donation to his unsuccessful campaign very last calendar year for Brooklyn borough president and that he was under no obligation to repay her. The parishioner’s law firm explained they experienced no comment on Miller-Whitehead’s indictment.

Miller-Whitehead is also charged with trying to encourage a businessman to lend him $500,000 and give him a stake in sure true estate transactions, in aspect by declaring he help the businessman by getting favorable actions from metropolis governing administration on his behalf, prosecutors stated. Miller-Whitehead “knew he experienced no capacity to get hold of these types of actions” but claimed to the businessman that they would be earning “millions,” prosecutors mentioned.

Before this 12 months, prosecutors said, Miller-Whitehead utilised the risk of power to get $5,000 from the businessman’s firm. According to the indictment, legislation enforcement officers investigating Miller-Whitehead directed the businessman to make the payment in February. The businessman was not discovered in the indictment.

Miller-Whitehead’s indictment reveals he was already below investigation when he was robbed in July and, prior to that, when he showed up to a Manhattan police precinct in May possibly in a Rolls Royce SUV making an attempt to negotiate the surrender of a person accused of fatally taking pictures a stranger on a New York Metropolis subway prepare.

Miller-Whitehead, noting his closeness with the mayor, instructed reporters at the time that he had “multiple conversations” with Adams with regards to Andrew Abdullah’s surrender, though the suspect was in the end picked up by police outside the house the places of work of the public defender group that was representing him.

In accordance to the indictment, Miller-Whitehead was underneath investigation because at least February. Which is when he allegedly acquired the $5,000 from the businessman. In June, FBI brokers executed a research warrant for Miller-Whitehead’s cellphones. Which is when they say he lied and claimed he only experienced just one telephone. Just after the search, according to the indictment, he sent a textual content concept from his second phone referring to it as “my other phone.”

In an Instagram publish in the wake of the church theft, Miller-Whitehead defended his way of life, saying he’s “going to stay his everyday living the way God has it set up for him.”

“It’s not about me staying flashy,” Miller-Whitehead reported. “It’s about me, obtaining what I want to purchase. And it’s my prerogative to order what I want to order.”

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Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak. Deliver confidential strategies by visiting https://www.ap.org/ideas/.