Tuesday, March 26, 2024 – A fake pastor who had at least 10 wives has been thrown in jail after marrying two women.
Orlando Coleman visited black churches across the US under
the guise of a travelling bishop, collecting spouses as he went.
The 51-year-old would introduce himself to new congregations
as a member of the clergy, and was able to dupe at least 10 different women
into marrying him.
Coleman, from Houston, had presented himself as the founder
of several churches as well as a Pentecostal preacher on social media.
Despite pleading guilty to bigamy in July 2023 and being
placed on probation for marrying two women simultaneously, he wedded another
woman two months later.
Now, he has been put behind bars for three years for
marrying multiple women since 2019.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said: "At the
heart of this repeat offender’s schemes was a plan to defraud women and take
advantage of them for financial gain.
"This man used the church to camouflage his scams and hide from any accountability or responsibility."
In Texas bigamy is defined as being married to more than one
person at a time and carries a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Coleman's web of deceit started to unravel in 2021 when he
married a woman in Houston, but his new wife saw he was receiving money from
another woman in Virginia. When his then-current wife contacted the woman from
Virginia it was revealed that she too was married to Coleman. Coleman's Houston
wife then contacted the Harris County Sheriff's Office with the revelation, who
in turn launched an investigation and filed bigamy charges.
In July 2023, Coleman pleaded guilty to bigamy in exchange
for three years of deferred adjudication probation.
However, just two months later, while still married to the
woman in Virginia, Coleman tied the knot again with another woman in Kentucky,
committing another offense of bigamy.
Upon learning about Coleman's new marriage, prosecutors from
the Harris County District Attorney’s Office moved to revoke his probation.
In a hearing on March 11, a judge sentenced Coleman to three
years in prison.
Prosecutors say Coleman married the women for housing and
financial security. After introducing himself as a Protestant pastor or bishop,
Coleman would propose marriage. If a woman accepted, he would move in with her
and allow her to foot the cost of his housing and food.
"That’s the only thing he had to offer and to validate
his word - the proposal to marry - that was something big," Assistant
District Attorney Vanessa Goussen told The New York Times. "Getting
proposed to was a big gesture for these women, and that corroborated his guise
that he’s a godly person."
Some of the women filed for divorce after Coleman fled to
another state.
Coleman is currently being held at the Harris County Jail.
.jpg)
0 Comments