‘Rollin’ with the Crips’
Feds say Whitehead boasted of ties to gangs and Adams
Lamor Whitehead, a criminally indicted pastor who has been friends with Mayor Adams for years, called the mayor the “key” to his financial success and boasted about his connections to notorious street gangs while extorting a businessman for a $500,000 real estate investment, according to Manhattan federal prosecutors.
In previously unreported court filings released over the past few weeks, the feds allege Whitehead made the extraordinary claims in phone calls, in-person conversations and text messages they intercepted. The filings are meant to provide a clearer view of the evidence the feds allegedly have against Whitehead ahead of the Feb. 26 start of his Manhattan Federal Court trial on charges that he swindled a parishioner, lied to the FBI and falsified bank documents, in addition to extorting the businessman, Brandon Belmonte.
Whitehead, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, claims the case against him is a setup concocted by Belmonte, who's under indictment in an unrelated fraud case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn.
There's no indication the mayor — who isn't charged as part of Whitehead's case or accused of any wrongdoing in connection to it — was aware of the way in which the pastor allegedly used his name to further his extortion plot. In fact, the prosecutors write in the new filings Whitehead “falsely represented” to the businessman that Adams could help them corruptly secure city government actions for a real estate venture.
But the Manhattan feds — who are investigating the mayor's 2021 campaign in a separate probe — also wrote Whitehead made it appear to Belmonte as if he was in direct contact with Adams, who's referred to in court papers as “the official.” Other court filings make clear the unnamed official is Adams.
“The Meeting has been sent [sic] for Friday with [the official], and we are still struggling to get things done! What are we really doing?” Whitehead texted Belmonte in May 2022, lamenting he had not yet wired him the $500,000 he said would go toward developing a housing complex in the Bronx, according to the court filings. “I'm preparing for this meeting today so I'm glad that you really wanted to sabotage me and my business.”
Earlier that month, Whitehead allegedly told Belmonte in an intercepted conversation he was so close with the mayor he could help them get a stop-work order on the property lifted. In order to do so, though, Whitehead told him ownership of the property needed to be in his name, according to the feds.
“When I go to [the official], I go, ‘Look, I own this right here. I need this up, off,'” Whitehead is quoted in the filings as saying, referring to the stop-work order. “I can't come to him no other way.”
In the same conversation, the feds say Whitehead told Belmonte: “I'll deal with the City Council, I'll deal with the Assembly over there, and I'll deal with the Mayor's office … But we gotta have ownership. I gotta be able to say, ‘Yo, yo [nickname for the official], I own this. This is what's goin on.' ”
In a conversation a month earlier about the same issue, Whitehead allegedly told Belmonte he should trust him to have ownership of the property because the mayor was their “key to the city.”
Whitehead, who's out on bail, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday.
Charles Lutvak, a spokesman for Adams, didn't answer specific questions from the Daily News about whether the mayor spoke with Whitehead in the spring of 2022, but said in an email: “As the U.S. Attorney's office said when they brought this case, the defendant ‘knew he could not obtain' favors from city government.”
Adams has known Whitehead since his days as Brooklyn borough president, when he appeared with him at multiple official events, including a 2016 concert where he introduced the pastor as his “good friend.” Whitehead, who mounted a failed 2021 campaign to succeed Adams as Brooklyn BP, has said he considers the mayor his “mentor” and “brother.”
Around the same time he spoke to him about the real estate investment, Whitehead told Belmonte about his ties to some of the country's most violent street gangs in the context of people he planned to invite to a party, the feds say.
“I am rollin' with the Crips, the Rules, the Bloods, every gang member, okay? They inbox me, ‘Yo Bishop. Thank you.' I'm rollin' with them. I'm rollin' with them,” Whitehead allegedly told him.
The feds say they have intercepted four additional phone calls involving Belmonte and other individuals who talked about Whitehead's gang affiliations.
“The call participants discussed [Whitehead's] gang affiliation and relationships with gangs, including the Crips gang, and the defendant's intimidation of [Belmonte] by sending individuals to [Belmonte's] business,” the feds wrote.
The feds also revealed in the new filings they believe Whitehead told Belmonte about keeping guns at his Brooklyn church — a claim first reported by The News last year — to intimidate him while squeezing him for cash.
“I don't play, I don't, there's guns in my church. I don't, I don't, I don't trust none of these people. You come in here, you gonna get shot,” the feds quote Whitehead as telling Belmonte in an April 23, 2022 conversation. “You understand what I'm saying. So at the end of the day like, I'm from the streets, bro. I do what God tells me to do.”
With jury selection for Whitehead's trial around the corner, the feds included a proposed juror questionnaire along with the latest batch of documents.
The questionnaire says prosecutors anticipate Adams “may be mentioned” during the trial and then proposes to ask prospective jurors: “Does anyone have any opinion, either positive or negative, of Eric Adams that would impact your ability to be fair in this case?”