He traveled around the country, visiting small Black churches, where he presented himself as a pastor or a bishop.

But prosecutors said they had found no evidence that Orlando Coleman, 51, of Houston, was a member of the clergy and they contend he used the claim to win the trust of churchgoing women — at least 10 of whom he married over the last two decades.

It was a long con that came to an end last week, prosecutors said, when Mr. Coleman was sentenced to three years in prison after he married a woman in Kentucky, violating the conditions of his probation on a bigamy charge.

Vanessa Goussen, an assistant district attorney in Harris County, Texas, who prosecuted Mr. Coleman, said that investigators believe that his first marriage was in 2001 and that he married women for financial gain.

Over the years, she said, Mr. Coleman traveled to Delaware, Texas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia and other states to meet women.