Bling bishop Lamor Whitehead battles another church in legal brawl, boots congregation from building

An unholy war is brewing in Brooklyn.

Bling bishop Lamor Whitehead is embroiled in a nasty real estate battle with another church, and booted its congregation out of a house of worship just days before Christmas.

The legal fight over a Canarsie church building is the latest chapter in the saga of the flashy cleric, who was indicted on federal fraud and extortion charges earlier this week.

Bishop Lamor Whitehead in Brooklyn on Friday, July 29, 2022.

On Dec. 14, Whitehead had a work crew change the locks at the Glory of God Global Ministry Church on Foster Ave. near E. 59th St., in what the church’s lawyer, Nicholas Yokos, referred to as “one of the most brazen illegal commercial lockouts I’ve seen in over a decade of practice.”

Whitehead oversaw the work personally, accompanied by NYPD officers, one of the church deacons, Vernon Wilson, testified in Brooklyn Housing Court Wednesday.

“He said to us that he’s in the possession of the building and that he has the right to do whatever he wants,” the deacon said. And over the weekend, Whitehead’s workers threw the church’s belongings and furniture into dumpsters, Wilson said.

The Glory of God Christian Center on Foster Ave. in Brooklyn on Thursday, Dec. 22.

Whitehead’s position is that he bought the property fair and square at an auction nearly a year ago, after the church’s pastor lost the building to foreclosure, and the church has been “squatting” there ever since, his lawyer, Brian Ponder, told the Daily News.

“That building was sitting abandoned, and they would basically unlawfully enter it on Sundays and have services,” Ponder said. “And then recently, the bishop, you know, stopped that. They were not evicted because they were not tenants.”

Ponder added, “They’re trying all they can to be able to get a house of worship for free, a $2 million building for free.”

The church’s leaders went to Brooklyn Housing Court Wednesday, where Judge Heela Capell ordered them back onto the property, after Yokos argued that the 150 to 200 congregants were illegally locked out without an eviction warrant or a writ of ejection.

Bishop Lamor Whitehead allegedly had a work crew change the locks at the Glory of God Global Ministry Church on Foster Ave. in Brooklyn on Dec. 14, 2022.

Glory of God and its pastor argue that the church never lost ownership.

Foreclosure proceedings started in 2018, because of a tax lien on the property, and the building was ordered foreclosed in 2020, according to court filings.

Whitehead bought the building through a trust in February for just over $1.9 million, court records show.

The pastor, Funmi Williams, contended in a March court filing in a separate lawsuit that she didn’t know about any lien or foreclosure, and only learned about it when she got a call from a lawyer that month telling her about the auction.

She maintained that the church received tax exempt status in 2011 and bought the Foster Ave. property on 2014 for $2.2 million as Triple C’s Venture LLC, and its accountant assured her that she wouldn’t have to pay taxes.

A lock that was on the Glory of God Global Ministry Church on Foster Ave. in Brooklyn.

Whitehead’s lawyers countered that her company paid other taxes on the property, and her unnamed accountant should have known that an LLC can’t operate as a tax-exempt not-for-profit.

Even so, in September, a state supreme court judge denied a request in the earlier lawsuit to order the church ejected from the property.

“Rather than proceeding through the court system, they performed an illegal self-help lockout and wanton removal (and) destruction of property,” Yokos said.

Neither Whitehead nor his lawyer showed up at Wednesday’s hearing. Ponder contended that the hearing should have never taken place, and called the housing court judge’s order invalid, because he moved the case to Brooklyn Federal Court on Monday.

Whitehead’s workers allegedly threw the church’s belongings and furniture into dumpsters, according to Deacon Wilson.

Whitehead plans to turn the building into the new headquarters for his church, his lawyer said.

Whitehead and his wife were robbed at gunpoint during a live-streamed Sunday service at his Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministry on Remsen Ave. near Avenue D in Canarsie in July, when three masked men burst in during a sermon and took $1 million in jewelry from him and his wife.

Two suspects have been arrested on federal charges.

The New York Daily News front page on Dec. 21, 2022.

Whitehead has been giving virtual sermons in recent weeks as Ponder said that a clash with a woman during one of his live services made the bishop rethink the safety of holding sermons at his current church.

The Foster Ave. building, Ponder said, would be more secure, once workers “rehab the space.”

“My client wants to have worship before the holidays,” Ponder said. “You know, my client wants to have service with his congregation.”

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