Bishop defends lifestyle after he’s robbed of $1M in jewelry on NY sermon livestream
Multiple armed robbers stole jewelry worth more than $1 million from Bishop Lamor Whitehead and his wife during his sermon at a church service in New York, according to media reports.
The robbery took place Sunday morning, July 24, at the Leaders of Tomorrow International Church in Brooklyn, CNN reported.
During Whitehead’s sermon, three masked gunmen entered the church, Fox 5 reported. Whitehead immediately got down on the floor on his hands and knees, instructing his congregation to do the same.
“I told everybody get down, everybody just get down,” Whitehead said in an Instagram video afterward. “I didn’t know if they wanted to shoot the church up or if they was just coming for a robbery.”
Livestream video of the service showed a gun held on the pastor as his jewelry was taken, CBS News reported. The livestream was later taken down.
The robbers left with more than $1 million worth of jewelry from Whitehead and his wife, NPR reported, citing the New York Police Department.
Whitehead said he ran — then drove — after the robbers, identifying their car and faces after they changed clothes and removed their masks.
The suspects took Whitehead’s watch, Bishop ring and cross, wedding band and other chains under his shirt, he said in the video. “He ripped my collar off just to get to my jewelry,” Whitehead said.
In the same video, Whitehead defended himself and his lifestyle.
“It’s not about me being flashy,” he said, “it’s about me purchasing what I want to purchase. It’s my prerogative to purchase what I want to purchase, if I worked hard for it.”
According to the church’s website, Whitehead owns mortgage and real estate companies.
Still, “jewelry is material,” Whitehead said, “you only get one life. I thank God that God spared my life, my wife life, my children life, my church life.”
Whitehead said in the video that he believed the robbery may have a connection to his actions in May when he helped turn in a man suspected of murdering someone on the subway.
“They blasted me all over the media,” he said. “Nobody looked at that, that I stopped, if this man did what they say he said, I stopped a murderer off the streets. And I also stopped a young black man — that get killed for less — not be killed.”
He also expressed shock at the robbery, saying, “To have three to four young black men come into my church with guns — where I would help them — everybody in these streets know when they get in trouble or they need help, they call me.”
An investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made, Fox 5 reported.
Whitehead founded the Leaders of Tomorrow ministry in 2013, according to their website.
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