Law&Crime Sidebar - Woman Charged After NY Bishop Manhandled Her During Church Service

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

During his Sunday service on Sept. 18, Brooklyn Bishop Lamor Whitehead manhandled a woman who was later charged with trespassing and disrupting a religious service. Whitehead was not charged in the incident. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy has the latest.GUESTS:Bryant R. Camareno: https://twitter.com/camarenoLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael Deininger Guest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Why, they take pitches and they want to be on social media. Take the pitches. Take the pitches. Take the pitches. Take the pitches. Take the pitches. Take the pitches. Okay, now go over here. Go over here. Grab her, grab her out. Now you're going to grab her out. Grab her out. Grab her out. That was Bishop Lamore M. Whitehead at his church in Brooklyn, New York this past Sunday, where he was giving a sermon. And he says a woman who was being disruptive, then walked up to him. And he said he felt threatened by this woman. He and his wife and his child. So part of this was captured on surveillance video. Let's take a look. yeah come on up here come on up here i'm gonna make you famous come on up here yes lord yes lord yes lord yes lord yes lord in the name of jesus in the name of jesus let's pray in the spirit y'all Roko Shatnamamama ma ma ma ma ma ma si

Glory to God. Now remove her out of here. Now move her out of here. Move her out of here. Amen. Come on. Let's give Jesus a round of applause, y'all. Now, after this happened, Lamar Whitehead was taken to the police department, and so was this woman. They were both questioned. Whitehead was later let go, and the woman was charged with some misdemeanor crimes. Then Lamore Whitehead held a press conference talking about the incident. Everybody keeps saying that I invite her in the pulpit. You have to be a minister to be in the in my church. So she came on the side and she began to yell at me. She began to cuss me out and see whatever she wanted to say. I let her say what she wants to say. And I'm going to be posting more

video because you guys didn't see the video inside of the church. What you guys don't see on camera is that she started to walk back to leave and then she spit back around. And she came back after my wife and my daughter. So I have my wife and my daughter who's 10 months old sitting there and she came and said, and now you, you're a liar, going towards my wife. And that's when you see her walk in front of me going at my wife and my daughter and I grabbed her. Everybody's saying that I choked her. How can you choke somebody from behind? Now, Bishop Whitehead says that he was actually set up by the woman and some other people to create this ruckus. And this all happened after he was robbed at gunpoint in the very same church earlier this month.

So joining me to discuss this is attorney Bryant Camerillo. Bryant, welcome back to Sidebar. We appreciate you coming on. Tell me your thoughts on this. We have the surveillance video from different angles showing what happened. But we also have him saying, oh, you want to come up here and preach? Come, come, come. So what are your thoughts after seeing the video and listening to Bishop Whitehead's press conference? If I'm representing, and thank you, by the way, for having me on your show. But if I were representing the woman, my argument would be, hey, he invited me to come on stage. And I took advantage of that. and I wasn't threatening anyone. I wasn't assaulting anyone. And therefore, his manhandling of me, grabbing me by the neck, was unjustified. Now, if he were to get charged, I would argue representing him, the pastor, that, hey, I felt threatened. And I think he says that. I felt threatened. So that video kind of works both ways. There's things that help her. There's things that help him. And you can see where she goes off to the right of the camera heading towards somebody. That's when he grabbed. And I think

that's where he's going to claim that his family felt, he felt threatened for his family, which would therefore justify his grabbing her by the neck. So, you know, it works kind of both ways. I think in the end, I'd be surprised if anybody got charged with this in terms of officially, you know, if the state attorney's office or the attorney's office goes through with a criminal case. Oh, interesting. So you think there's a possibility that the charges against the woman could later be dropped. The prosecutor would say, we're not doing anything with this. I would think so unless there's witnesses, they're going to fill in the blanks because the video, again, just simply shows her motioning off towards.

the, you know, off to the side. So unless there's witnesses are going to say, oh, no, no, no, no, I can see where she got really close to his wife and baby or whatever. I think that's what he claimed. So, yeah, unless there's witnesses to support that, I don't know if his actions were justified or if her actions were caused or rose to the level of a crime. So yeah, the district attorney could say, you know, I'm not going to press charges against either one of them. That's very interesting. And right now, Bishop Whitehead isn't facing any charges. How much do you think the earlier incident where a gun was pointed at him and he was robbed in his church, how much do you think that played into the decision to maybe not charge him? I mean, he did

invite her up. She is on another social media post saying that he grabbed her neck and that she had scratches. He's denying that he scratched the woman. He says he's well groomed. So how much do you think the earlier incident played into the decision to not do anything to him? Well, you know, a good question. I prosecuted for 10 years. And so I would definitely look into what's going on with this pastor that he's the victim of a robbery. And then there's this group out there that are quote unquote trying to set him up, which even the pastor admits. So I would have, if I were the prosecutor, I look at what's going on that he has so many enemies. And that might not necessarily justify what he did or what she did to him, if anything, but I would definitely look at something's

going on with him. And it could affect his level of credibility. So if I were the prosecutor and I discovered that there's something going on behind the scenes, I may not want to call him as a witness. So that's why I may not want to charge him or charge anyone because if I call him as a victim to the stand and it comes out that he's involved in, let's say, something, you know, nefarious, then I don't know if I'd want to, you know, vouch for his credibility as a prosecutor. So it may come into play that there's something going on, but, you know, nothing's come out yet as to that. But I definitely would look into it if I was a prosecutor. Well, it's all just very strange to me. The whole incident seems really strange that you would obviously, you know, maybe have some group of people. and he kind of makes it sound like it's more than one person, sending somebody in to kind of cause this disturbance and then going up when he's invited or when she's invited and going up there to the front of the church and then him actually putting his hands on her.

So I find this to be not that, I mean, most crimes or most incidents are kind of weird, but this seems kind of to be to be a little bit of a next level, bizarre type of thing. Right. Well, again, so if I were the prosecutor, I look at, why does he have so many enemies? Number one. Number two, he does invite her up. My impression was, and again, if I'm representing him, is that she was being vocal and he invited her up to preach. And then when he saw her wander off, or at least her attitude changed and she was yelling at him and then wander off towards his family, that's when he grabbed her. So I think the invitation on stage again was part because I think she was, maybe he was just inviting her thinking that she was part of the celebration, you know, the ministry. But again, I agree with you. There's just a strange situation. And that's why I would look at everything before I call him as a victim or as a witness. Because, again, if there's anything in his background, it's fair game. And as a defense attorney cause examining him, it might call into question his credibility. And then the district attorney's case is shut down.

So I think that's what they're going to be looking at. What's going on with him? And why does he have so many enemies? Yeah, it seems interesting to say the least. We're glad nobody was hurt, though. I mean, these days, you just never know. It seems like there are a lot of people. out there. We cover things all the time. And I guess you can't be, you can never be too careful in this

day and age. We see all kinds of crazy things happen. I think this pastor, though, Bishop Whitehead, needs to maybe get some security at his church. Well, I think so, again, and I would maybe do some self-analysis. If I'm the pastor, why do so many people hate me? If I'm a minister of God, why are so many people angry at me? And so again, it may call into question, is there something going on? Is he, you know, again, I'm not disparaging him. Is he taking money? Is he misusing money? So that's why, again, I would look at it. And then he himself, again, do some self-analysis. Why are so many people angry at me? What can I do to make the peace? Because this is the second time he's been assaulted, if you will, on state, you know, live on camera.

Yeah, it's very strange for sure. Again, glad nobody was injured. And we'll just watch to see what happens with this. Bryant Camerino, defense attorney out of Tampa, Florida. We appreciate you coming on, as always. Of course. Thank you. Anytime. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar Podcast. It is produced by Michael Dininger and Sam Goldberg. Logan Harris is our video editor. Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. And Kira Bronson handles our social media. You can listen to Sidebar wherever you get your podcast. That's Apple, Spotify, Google, and much more.

And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.