One of the men who robbed Brooklyn “Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead during a live-streamed sermon got more than five years behind bars Tuesday — and his sentencing judge dismissed the idea that the crooked clergyman was lying about the value of the stolen jewelry.
Juwan Anderson, 26, was sentenced in Brooklyn Federal Court for his role in the caught-on-video 2022 heist, which involved driving his two armed accomplices to the bishop’s Canarsie church and plucking the bling off of him as he lay prone on the ground.
Brooklyn Federal Court Judge William Kuntz brought up the mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina, where a white supremacist murdered nine members of a Black Church congregation in 2015
“When a criminal invaded the Mother Emanuel Church, President Obama stated a church is more than a space,” Kuntz said before he handed down the 63-month sentence.. “Every church, every synagogue, every mosque … every place of worship in the United States of America provides Americans with a constitutionally protected place of safety and worship.”
Kuntz in August sentenced another member of the heist crew, Say-Quan Pollack, to 7¼ years, rejecting an argument that he get leniency because Whitehead is also a crook.
The fallen pastor was sentenced to nine years in June, after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of a string of frauds, including stealing a parishioner’s life savings.
The third robber, Shamar Leggette, was shot dead in a gunfight with police and U.S. Marshals at a New Jersey motel in January.
Anderson must also pay more than $402,000 in restitution, despite his defense lawyer’s arguments that Whitehead couldn’t be trusted to accurately state how much his jewelry was worth, and that one of items, a $100,000 Cartier watch, was appraised months after the robbery based off a photograph.
“You gonna have a fence come in and sway what the jewels were worth?” Kuntz asked Ben Yaster of the Federal Defenders, who responded with a “No, your honor.”
Kuntz repeatedly interrupted Yaster as he tried to argue that a photo taken after the robbery wasn’t sufficient to gauge the value of the watch.
“I understand the Bling Bishop is a criminal. I get that,” Kuntz said. “But criminals sometimes have very expensive stuff and very valuable stuff.”
When Yaster said, “My idea of reality is that people have their jewelry appraised when they’re in possession of it,” the judge shot back and asked if Yaster had prior experience dealing with jewelry-related cases, then said,” I didn’t think so.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Schuman said that prosecutors were using a “conservative” estimate of how much the jewelry was worth, and they weren’t relying soley on Whitehead’s say-so.
Yaster also pointed out that Anderson had no prior criminal record, and has spent nearly two years adhering to the rules of his house arrest.
Before the judge handed down his sentence, Anderson said he understood the severity of the crime. “I just want everybody to know that what I did was not a part of my character,” he said. “I’m actually a church-going person. I’m not a monster.”
Whitehead, who Mayor Adams took under his wing as a mentor, is known for sporting expensive clothes and flashy jewelry and espousing the “prosperity gospel” — preaching that faith will bring money and success, and that “seeds” of cash donation to his church will grow into wealth for his parishioners.
He was delivering his live-streamed sermon inside the Leaders of Tomorrow International church in Canarsie, Brooklyn, on July 24, 2022, when three masked bandits stormed in. They forced the bishop to the ground and took jewelry from him and his wife — who was holding their young daughter on her lap.
Though police had described their haul as $1 million worth of jewelry, so far the victims have only documented some of the stolen items to be worth more than $400,000.
Whitehead’s fortunes turned after May 2022, when he unsuccessfully tried to broker an accused subway shooter’s surrender, interfering with police and defense lawyers’ attempts to bring the suspect in peacefully.
The robbery happened two months after that, and Whitehead started accumulating legal trouble, culminating with his conviction in Manhattan Federal Court in a multiple fraud scheme, including lying about his ties to Adams to extort and try to defraud a Bronx body shop owner.
Anderson was ordered to start his sentence on Jan. 6.
