Rev. Jailed for Sham Asylum Weddings

Gay vicar Alex Brown was sentenced Monday for knowingly presiding over some 360 sham weddings in his four years as a reverend at a Church of England parish in East Sussex.

The Daily Mail of London reports that Brown, 61, conducted the fraudulent marriages from July 2005 to July 2009, and most of them were sought by the sham spouses for immigration purposes including U.K. residency rights. The bulk of the weddings over which Brown presided were between African men and Eastern European women.

Many of the ceremonies bore unmistakable marks of insincerity, including wedding bands that didn’t fit, borrowed dresses, and unusual names like “Felix Spaceman.”

Brown is slated to begin serving his four-year sentence this week.