Folks already had their criticisms of Brooklyn Bishop Lamor Whitehead before a group of guys robbed him at gunpoint one Sunday. After the Internet got a hold of the incident and made speculations as to whether the robbery was real or not, Pastor Prada decided he’d file a lawsuit against the influencers who dragged him on social media, according to the NY Daily News.
Let’s be real. It didn’t really take a group of YouTubers or Twitter typers to smear the Bishop’s name as people were already raising an eyebrow to his Gucci-down attire and Rolls Royce parked in front of the church. Alas, it must be the Internet’s fault. According to Whitehead’s court filings, YouTuber DeMario Q. Jives and he-who-drags-every-church-leader-online influencer Larry Reid are named as the defendants.
Read more from the New York Daily News:
Jives specifically claimed on his YouTube channel last month that a videotaped armed robbery where Whitehead lost an estimated $400,000 in jewelry while preaching from the pulpit was not what it appeared.
The bishop “is wearing the same jewelry that (he) got robbed in,” the court papers charged Jives with saying on his YouTube channel. “This n—-a is out here drug dealing.”
Reid was accused in court documents of making online accusations that Miller-Whitehead “scammed people out of money” and “will be locked up in about three months.”
“As a result of (the defendants’) conduct, Plaintiff lost business deals, church members and income,” read the bishop’s court filings. “(Defendants) are liable to Plaintiff for defamation, libel per se and slander per se.”
Whitehead would be filing lawsuits all day, every day if he had to track down all of the people accusing him of being some slum lord in disguise. Matters didn’t look great for him following the robbery as one of his congregation members filed a suit against him for robbing her of her retirement money, Insider reported.
Then, his reenactment of the robbery for his 10 church members following the incident seemed like a dramatic plea for sympathy. Until he goes under investigation, we might never know if this whole robbery was a hoax or not. However, we do know that he stands proudly on his reputation as that “flashy preacher.”