The flashy Brooklyn bishop acknowledged for flaunting his Gucci fits, diamond-encrusted chains and secure of luxury vehicles claims it’s not his fault he was specific in a $1 million jewellery heist.
Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead — who’s cozy with Mayor Eric Adams and formerly did five decades in jail for id fraud and grand larceny — insisted on Instagram that his community shows of prosperity did not direct to Sunday’s gunpoint robbery during his livestreamed service in Canarsie.
“It’s not about me being flashy,” explained the Rolls-Royce-driving clergyman, 44, in a video shortly immediately after three robbers robbed him and his spouse in the middle of his sermon at the Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries.
“It’s about me getting what I want to invest in. It is my prerogative to acquire what I want to purchase.”
The bishop stated he just cannot be blamed for standing out in the community, specified his position, as critics instructed his “blinged-out’’ search could have designed him an outsize concentrate on.
“Sometimes when you’re a recognized bishop, it is a reward and a curse,” Miller-Whitehead reported. “You develop into the communicate of the town.”
At the time of the robbery, Miller-Whitehead and his wife were wearing a lot more than $1 million in jewels and gold.
The thieves produced off with a treasure trove of products totaling $1,060,000: a $75,000 Rolex check out, a $75,000 Cavalier enjoy, a $25,000 Episcopal ruby and diamond ring, a $25,000 Episcopal diamond ring, a $25,000 pair of earrings, a $20,000 diamond and emerald cross, a $20,000 Episcopal ring, a $20,000 Episcopal cross and a $10,000 Episcopal gold cross.
“When I see them occur into the sanctuary with their guns, I advised every person [to] get down, every person just get down,” Miller-Whitehead stated in a person of two lengthy Instagram movies he posted late Sunday.
“I didn’t know if they wished to shoot the church up or if they were just coming for a robbery.”
The suspects were all putting on masks, but Miller-Whitehead mentioned he could see their faces.
“They took all of my wife’s jewelry and took all of my jewelry, and then they left,” the bishop mentioned, pointing out that he was even robbed of his wedding ceremony band and the debacle remaining his congregants “traumatized.”
“However, these young guys did not know that cameras had been on, and we know what car or truck you have been driving.”
The a few suspects fled in a white Mercedes, Miller-Whitehead claimed. He said he saw them change their garments in the motor vehicle as he futilely ran just after them. They are continue to in the wind, law enforcement claimed Monday.
“For you to kick in a church doorway and arrive with guns in the center of company — what God is gonna do to y’all is earlier mentioned my shell out grade,’’ the bishop claimed of the suspects while shaking his head.
Miller-Whitehead, who mentioned he understands the “rules of the streets,” named on the general public to submit any guidelines to the NYPD.
The flashy pastor has had ties to Adams since at the very least 2013 and last made headlines in May perhaps when he attempted to negotiate the surrender of an accused subway shooter and claimed to have spoken with Hizzoner whilst the suspect was on the free.
He appeared at far more than a dozen significant-profile occasions that Adams attended throughout Adams’ tenure as Brooklyn borough president, and in 2016, the then-BP released Miller-Whitehead as “my great mate and good brother” at a concert in East Flatbush.
At the time, The Put up described that Miller-Whitehead was buoyed by Adams’ assist, which helped him endorse and increase dollars for Leaders of Tomorrow Brooklyn, a for-financial gain agency released in 2014 that was billed as a youth mentorship nonprofit.
But the business came less than scrutiny when it claimed to have partnered with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Business, the NYPD and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, corporations that claimed at the time to have no ties to the clergyman’s group.
