NEW YORK (AP) — A prosecutor informed a jury firstly of a fraud trial Monday {that a} Brooklyn preacher exaggerated his ties to New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams and let greed overtake him as he looted a parishioner’s retirement financial savings and tried to extort a businessman to gas his lavish life-style. His lawyer mentioned the federal government is improper.
Lamor Miller-Whitehead, 47, a Rolls Royce-driving bishop, was accused by Assistant U.S. Legal professional Jessica Greenwood of telling the proprietor of an auto restore store that he may get the mayor to “do official favors” if he and the businessman teamed up on actual property offers that would earn them tens of millions of {dollars}.
In Manhattan federal court docket, Greenwood known as Miller-Whitehead a “con man who informed lie after misinform sufferer after sufferer, committing crime after crime.”
She mentioned he was “keen to lie, cheat and steal to maintain up his look of wealth,” which included fancy vehicles, designer clothes and the mansion the place he lived.
Miller-Whitehead has pleaded not responsible to wire fraud, tried extortion and making false statements to federal regulation enforcement officers.
His legal professional, Daybreak Florio, informed jurors to maintain their minds open as a result of the proof they see received’t help the costs.
“The federal government has not met their burden of proof,” she mentioned.
Miller-Whitehead has been free on $500,000 bail since his arrest, which got here solely months after he was the sufferer of a theft when $1 million in jewellery was stolen from him by gunmen who stunned him throughout a church service.
Miller-Whitehead developed a friendship with the town’s mayor whereas Adams served as Brooklyn’s borough president earlier than his election to the town’s high job.
At a information convention final week, the mayor was requested about authorized filings within the case indicating prosecutors deliberate to indicate jurors proof that Miller-Whitehead used the identify of Adams to commit fraud and tried extortion.
Adams responded that anybody reporting about it ought to “quote the paperwork that acknowledged that clearly he didn’t have authorization and there was no connectivity to the actions of (the) mayor or borough president.”
Amongst pretrial evidentiary rulings, the choose has agreed to exclude point out of Miller-Whitehead’s prison conviction for id theft and grand larceny, which resulted in a five-year jail stint, though it could possibly be introduced up if he decides to testify.
Miller-Whitehead turned a non secular determine when he fashioned the Leaders of Tomorrow Worldwide Ministries in 2013.
Though he preaches in Brooklyn, he owns a $1.6 million house in Paramus, New Jersey, and an condominium in Hartford, Connecticut.
Prosecutors allege he bilked a parishioner out of $90,000 in retirement financial savings by falsely promising he 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 luxurious items and clothes.
However Florio informed the jury that the parishioner was truly cheated by her son, who borrowed the $90,000 from her and bought her to cosign a mortgage for his own residence, leaving the girl unable to buy a house for herself.
Miller-Whitehead is also charged with attempting to persuade a businessman to lend him $500,000 and provides him a stake in actual property offers by claiming his ties to metropolis officers may earn favorable therapy for the businessman’s pursuits.
The businessman, Brandon Belmonte, complained to federal authorities, who initiated a half-year probe in 2022 that culminated in Miller-Whitehead’s arrest.
Florio mentioned her shopper was harmless of that cost as effectively as a result of it was a civil dispute between Miller-Whitehead and Belmonte, not a prison matter.
