A Brooklyn bishop who made headlines this week for lobbing anti-gay slurs at a radio host has been accused of stealing $90,000 from a congregant.
According to a lawsuit, Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches Bishop Lamor Whitehead convinced 56-year-old Pauline Anderson to pay him $90,000 in November 2020. In exchange, Whitehead promised to purchase a house for Anderson. Instead, he allegedly used the money to make a down payment on a $4.4 million home for himself in Saddle River, New Jersey.
The revelation comes after Whitehead was allegedly robbed at gunpoint during a sermon before his congregation last Sunday. Three masked men entered the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in Brooklyn during Whitehead’s sermon, which was being livestreamed, and reportedly made off with $1 million in jewelry.
Earlier this week, Larry Reid, host of the online show Larry Reid Live, mocked Whitehead and the robbery. He and his cohost Genesis Warren suggested that the robbery might have been staged.
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“I’m not saying that the pastor had anything to do with [it], I don’t know. Maybe someone that knows him had him set up because he said in one of the videos that they took one of the chains from him that was inside of his robe. Well, how would someone even know that that was there? So that made me think that it was someone that he knew,” Warren said, also saying that Whitehead’s church looked “kind of Tyler Perryish to me.”
Reid brought up Whitehead’s past homophobia as well.
Whitehead saw the show and later participated in an interview with Reid and Warren via Facebook Live. During a discussion of the robbery, Whitehead fired back at Reid and Warren for mocking him and hurled an anti-gay slur at Reid.
“You want to sit here and validate homosexuality because you just admitted that you’re a fa***t,” Whitehead said.
On Tuesday, after the interview, Whitehead posted another video to social media addressing his comments, saying that “the Bible says homosexuality is an abomination.”
“Larry Reid expressed who he is; I’m expressing who I am. You ain’t bullying me,” he said. “Larry Reid is the Wendy Williams of Gospel. Larry Reid, you admitted that you were a homosexual at one point in your life. You admitted it. That’s what you admitted, but don’t sit here and tell me that I don’t like people of a different gender status because I love all people.”
“I love them all,” he said, according to the Christian Post. “Whatever you choose to do, this is America; this is the world. You do what you want to do, but it’s not going to stop me from preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination, and I’m in that Scripture, I’m not going to jump over that. That doesn’t make me homophobic.… I have to preach the unadulterated word of Jesus Christ.”
Whitehead is reportedly close with New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) and has appeared with the mayor at public events. Whitehead has described Adams as a “mentor.”
“This would be inappropriate language for anyone, let alone a religious leader who should show a greater level of decorum,” Adams said in a statement following Whitehead’s appearance on Larry Reid Live. “Armed robberies are serious and traumatic experiences that should not be mocked, but no one should resort to homophobic comments or body-shaming in response.”
The New York Post reports that Whitehead has a history of grifting and even served time in prison for identity theft and grand larceny. In 2006, he was arrested in Manhattan and charged with 10 counts of identity theft. He served five-years in prison.
More recently, Whitehead was in the news for attempting to help broker the surrender of a man accused of opening fire and killing one person on the New York City subway in May.
