- Lamor Miller-Whitehead, a Brooklyn preacher, faces trial for allegedly looting a parishioner's retirement funds and trying to extort a businessman.
- Miller-Whitehead, who based a ministry in 2013, owns property outdoors of Brooklyn and is accused of embezzling funds for private bills.
- His expenses embrace wire fraud, tried extortion and making false statements to authorities.
A Brooklyn preacher with ties to New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams will stand trial Monday in Manhattan federal courtroom on expenses of looting a parishioner's retirement financial savings and making an attempt to extort a businessman to feed his luxurious way of life.
Lamor Miller-Whitehead, 47, a bishop who drives a Rolls Royce, faces the beginning of jury choice two years after a grand jury returned expenses towards him that embrace wire fraud, tried wire fraud, tried extortion and false statements to federal regulation enforcement officers.
Prosecutors say he looted a parishioner's financial savings and deceived a businessman with false claims that they may leverage his connections with New York Metropolis officers, together with Adams, to make tens of millions of . Miller-Whitehead pleaded not responsible.
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Miller-Whitehead has been free on $500,000 bail since his arrest, which got here simply months after he was robbed when gunmen stole $1 million in jewellery after shocking him throughout a church service.
Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead speaks to the media in New York on Might 24, 2022. Miller-Whitehead can be tried Monday in federal courtroom in Manhattan on expenses of looting a parishioner's retirement financial savings and making an attempt to extort to a businessman to offer him gasoline. his luxurious way of life. (AP Picture/Mary Altaffer, File)
His legal professional, Daybreak Florio, stated on the time that her consumer felt like he was being turned from a sufferer right into a villain.
“Bishop Whitehead has pleaded not responsible and appears ahead to having his day in courtroom to combat these expenses,” Florio stated in a press release Friday.
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In charging paperwork, prosecutors didn’t point out the friendship Miller-Whitehead developed with the town's mayor whereas serving as Brooklyn borough president earlier than his election to the town's prime job.
However a request for proof by prosecutors suggests the mayor's relationship with Miller-Whitehead may turn into a central focus of the trial. Prosecutors are in search of to require a New Yorker author to testify a couple of January 2023 article titled “The Mayor and the Hustler.”
Lawyer Rachel Strom, who represents New Yorker employees author Eric Lach, argued in a letter to Choose Lorna G. Schofield that prosecutors had been making an attempt to “authenticate a generic, run-of-the-mill denial” Whitehead made about his dealings with the mayor as soon as. time Adams realized he was the goal of an investigation.
“The subpoena is extremely invasive, would expose the journalist to cross-examination (doubtlessly placing different confidential sources in danger) and would successfully flip the journalist into an arm of regulation enforcement,” he wrote. The choose was anticipated to rule earlier than opening arguments.
At a information convention final week, the mayor was requested about authorized paperwork within the case that indicated prosecutors deliberate to indicate jurors proof that Miller-Whitehead used Adams' title to commit fraud and tried extortion.
Adams responded that anybody reporting on it ought to “cite the paperwork that clearly acknowledged they’d no authorization and there was no connection to the actions of (the) mayor or borough president.”
Amongst pretrial evidentiary rulings, the choose agreed to exclude point out of Miller-Whitehead's prison conviction for id theft and grand larceny, which resulted in a five-year jail sentence, though it might be talked about if he decides to testify.
Miller-Whitehead grew to become a spiritual determine when she fashioned Tomorrow's Leaders Worldwide Ministries in 2013.
Though he preaches in Brooklyn, he owns a $1.6 million residence in Paramus, New Jersey, and an house in Hartford, Connecticut.
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Monday's trial stems from expenses alleging that he defrauded a parishioner out of $90,000 in retirement financial savings by falsely promising she would discover her a house and make investments the remainder in his actual property enterprise. Prosecutors say he as an alternative spent the cash on garments and luxurious objects.
He’s additionally accused of making an attempt to persuade a businessman to mortgage him $500,000 and provides him a stake in actual property offers by claiming that his ties to metropolis officers may result in a deal favorable to the businessman's pursuits.
The businessman, Brandon Belmonte, reported to federal authorities, who started a half-year investigation in 2022 that culminated within the arrest of Miller-Whitehead.
A few of the trial's key proof was anticipated to end result from secret audio recordings product of conversations between Belmonte and Miller-Whitehead.