Our Local Correspondents – Friend of the Mayor

Why did Eric Adams take a fraudster Brooklyn church leader under his wing?

- By Eric Lach

About a year ago, not long after Eric Adams was sworn in as the mayor of New York, an old friend and church leader named Lamor Whitehead went to an auto shop in the Bronx, to drop off a Mercedes-Benz G-Class S.U.V. that had been in a crash. Whitehead led a small church in Brooklyn called Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries. People called him Bishop. The shop he visited, No Limit Auto Body, was operated by a man named Brandon Belmonte, who was involved in real estate. Federal prosecutors would later refer to Belmonte as “a businessman.”

The Mercedes was a twenty-five-thousand-dollar job. Belmonte paid the thirteen-thousand-dollar bill for a rental replacement while the work was getting done. Whitehead wanted more. “He basically says, ‘You got to give me another five grand,’” Belmonte recalled. “I said, ‘Bro, the job was only twenty-five thousand. Thirteen and five is eighteen. The parts were seven grand. I’m gonna make zero.’ ” It occurred to Belmonte that Whitehead wasn’t trying to negotiate— he was asking for a kickback. He promised to make it worth Belmonte’s while. “I got City Hall in my back pocket,” Whitehead said, according to Belmonte.