Sentenced to 7 ¼ years for high-profile church robbery

August 13, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — THE MAN WHO ROBBED A BISHOP AND HIS WIFE during a livestreamed church service in 2022 was sentenced on Monday, Aug. 12, to more than seven years in prison. Say-Quan Pollack of Brooklyn received an 87-month prison sentence for his role in an armed robbery at a Canarsie Church on July 24, 2022, when he and his co- conspirators stole more $400,000 in jewelry from the pastor and his wife during the incident. United States District Judge William F. Kuntz II, who presided at the sentencing, also ordered Pollack to pay $402,639 in restitution to the victims. Pollack, Juwan Anderson and Shamar Leggette — masked and clad in black attire — entered the Church brandishing guns and interrupting the religious service with parishioners attending in person and via a live-stream, who witnessed the attack unfolding. Pollack and Anderson were arrested in September 2022. In December 2023, Anderson pleaded guilty to Hobbs Act robbery and is awaiting sentencing. Charges against Leggette were dismissed following his death in January 2024.

At the time, the robbery was a high-profile news, as the victim was identified as Bishop Lamor Whitehead, and the church was Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries, according to abc7. Whitehead himself was convicted in March 2024 and sentenced in June 2024 to nine years in federal prison for fraud, extortion and lying to the FBI. Some news reports have spelled his first name as Lamar.

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