Indicted NYC ‘Bling Bishop’ Lamor Whitehead devised ‘straw donor scheme’ during Brooklyn borough president run, feds say in court filing

NEW YORK — Lamor Whitehead, a scandal-scarred pastor with ties to Mayor Eric Adams, is suspected of having orchestrated an illegal “straw donor scheme” as part of his failed 2021 campaign to succeed Adams as Brooklyn’s borough president, a court filing reveals.

The new information about Whitehead — who faces criminal charges for allegedly extorting a businessman, swindling a retired parishioner, lying to the FBI and falsifying bank documents — was contained in a letter submitted in Manhattan Federal Court on Tuesday by prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ office.

Whitehead has not been charged with any crimes stemming from the previously unknown “straw donor scheme.” The letter does not say whether the feds plan to pursue charges along those lines.

Federal prosecutors wrote in the filing that they have “ample” evidence of the scheme and revealed they secured a warrant from a judge on Oct. 6, 2022 to search Whitehead’s electronic devices for evidence of it.

The scheme, which marks the first indication of possible wrongdoing by Whitehead that’s political in nature, revolves around several donations to his 2021 campaign for Brooklyn borough president, the feds wrote.

The prosecutors say they suspect Whitehead of “falsely reporting” to the city’s Campaign Finance Board that the donations in question came from other individuals.

“In truth, Whitehead had funded the donations himself,” the filing states.

By claiming he had multiple donors instead of reporting the campaign money came from his own funds, Whitehead made the campaign eligible for public matching funds it wasn’t due, according to the feds. The prosecutors described Whitehead’s effort as an attempt “to defraud the New York City Campaign Finance Board and steal funds from the city.”

The feds did not disclose how much money the alleged campaign finance scheme involved. They did not explain why Whitehead has not been charged with any crimes related to it, either.

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Reached over the phone Wednesday, Whitehead said he never received any public matching funds during his 2021 campaign.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” he told the Daily News of the letter filed in court.

According to campaign finance filings, Whitehead raised $57,518 for his unsuccessful 2021 campaign to become Brooklyn’s borough president. Whitehead’s team reported to the Campaign Finance Board that $21,836 of those donations were eligible for public matching funds, records show.

Campaign Finance Board spokesman Tim Hunter said the city ultimately never paid out any matching funds to Whitehead, though, because he did not meet eligibility thresholds that required him to raise at least $50,000 from 100 Brooklyn residents.

The city’s matching fund program was established to help level the playing field for grassroots candidates. Under the system, every dollar a candidate receives from a constituent they’re vying to represent is matched with $8 from the city, with a public dollar cap of $1,400 per contributor.

Whitehead, who’s known for wearing flashy designer clothes, driving luxury cars and delivering impassioned sermons on Instagram, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges he’s facing. He’s free on a $500,000 bond.

The alleged straw donor scheme was divulged by the feds in response to motions from Whitehead’s lawyers challenging the validity of the search warrants executed on him.

FBI agents have carried out at least four warrants on Whitehead, most of them pertaining to his alleged schemes to defraud a Bronx businessman and a retired parishioner at his Canarsie, Brooklyn church.

Whitehead’s attorneys say the warrants were predicated on information from unreliable sources, and that a judge should thereby throw out any evidence gathered in response to them — an argument dismissed by prosecutors.

“Whitehead’s many challenges to the warrants cannot escape a simple fact: there was ample evidence to support the many probable cause findings that Whitehead engaged in multiple criminal frauds,” the feds wrote in Tuesday’s filing.

Whitehead ended up coming in last in the 2021 Democratic Brooklyn borough president primary, netting just 4,084 votes — far short of the 107,963 cast for now-BP Antonio Reynoso.

Adams, who served as Brooklyn borough president from 2014 until he became mayor last year, did not endorse any candidate in the 2021 race to succeed him.

But Whitehead, who has counted Adams as a “mentor” for years, vowed on the 2021 campaign trail that he’d continue in his role-model’s footsteps if he got elected.

“This is a critical election. We have an opportunity to continue to move Brooklyn forward or allow career politicians to stifle our growth,” Whitehead wrote in a June 9, 2021 Facebook post.

Adams did not immediately return a request for comment via a spokesman Wednesday.

After Whitehead was first indicted in December, Adams called the charges against him “troubling,” but did not totally distance himself from the embattled pastor.

Whitehead and Adams have known each other since his days as a state senator.

Last month, Whitehead told The News he still looks up to Adams as ”a big brother or an uncle or a father.”

But he said doesn’t speak with Adams regularly anymore because he believes the indictment against him is part of “a witch hunt against the mayor.”