When a story begins with a pastor, an armed robbery in the pulpit and $1 million worth of ice, it’s headed to bad places. So of course it wasn’t long before a little digging into the background of the Right Rev. Robbery Aintwright Bishop Lamor Whitehead of Brooklyn’s Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches turned up a lawsuit claiming that $90,000 in retirement money from a member of his flock ended up in Whitehead’s personal collection plate instead.

The lawsuit claims that Whitehead lured saved saint-turned-victim 56-year-old Pauline Anderson into a relationship of trust as she recovered from major surgery, then made off with her hard-earned nest egg. {snip}

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Anderson says her son, Rasheed, hooked up a prayer call with Whitehead in April of 2020. By July of that year, they were on the phone again, this time because Anderson wanted to buy a house. {snip}

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What was that fraud? The lawsuit alleges that after Whitehead introduced Pauline Anderson to two different mortgage lenders who denied her because of credit, he suggested she invest her cash in his eponymous company under a promise he’d use it to buy a house for her, make any repairs and give her back her change, if any. With that verbal agreement—because who needs such things in writing—Anderson withdrew $90,000 from her checking account in November 2020 and handed it over to the preacher {snip}

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After several months of Pauline without her money or a new house, Whitehead accidentally emailed her son a contract for the purchase of a “palatial estate with an inground pool with a waterfall, outdoor fountains, hot tub, gym and wine cellar, among other luxury amenities,” in wealthy Saddle River, N.J. The purchase price: $4.4 million, and the lawsuit alleges Anderson’s $90,000 was used as the downpayment.

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