The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
in 2023 Raymond Gaglardi, a former employee of Glad Tidings Church in Vancouver, British Columbia and Hillside Community Church in Coquitlam, was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to almost 13 years in prison. The sentence was reduced to half due to Galardi’s age, meaning he will only spend six and a half years in prison.
A former pastor, therapist and counsellor who worked for churches in Coquitlam and Vancouver walked out of a court prisoner’s box today to be handcuffed and led to jail.
On Friday (Jan. 20), BC Supreme Court Justice Paul W. Riley imposed a sentence of 12 years and 11 months against Raymond Gaglardi; however, it was reduced by half under the totality principle due to his age, meaning Gaglardi will be behind bars for six years and six months.
Gaglardi, a diminutive man of 78 years old, showed no emotion as Riley took nearly 90 minutes to read out his reasons for judgment, or when the judge imposed the sentence.
His wife of 49 years, who sat behind the prisoner’s box, showed no expression as well.
But some victims present in court, and their spouses, brushed away tears after the decision. Several other victims — some dating back four decades — watched the hearing online.
Last year, following a trial, Riley convicted Gaglardi on 11 of the 25 offences before him. On the counts, each of the 11 victims experienced between one and three sexual assaults.
Riley recounted how Gaglardi befriended his victims at the Glad Tidings Church in Vancouver, its academy or summer camp, as well as at the Hillside Community Church in Coquitlam or at his counselling practice, located in the basement of his Coquitlam home.
The judge said Gaglardi “preyed” on adolescent boys or young men who came from troubled homes or were in need of help. They came to trust “Dr. Ray” for emotional support because he was part of the church and he told them he held a PhD in philosophy from Ohio Christian College, a post-secondary institution in the U.S. that was later declared to be fraudulent.
Gaglardi’s interactions with the boys and young men were “bizarre” and “opportunistic,” the judge told the New Westminster courtroom: In private, Gaglardi would check their bodies for venereal disease, touch their penises, use a pen-like instrument to examine their genitals, massage their prostate, provide pornographic material to masturbate or perform a coffee enema.
In another case in Coquitlam, Gaglardi did an anal swab with a Q-Tip to look at the feces.
And when the boys reported Gaglardi’s sexual conduct, they were often shunned from their broken families, who believed the church-going authority figure instead of their children.
The impact was long-lasting, the court heard, as many victims said Gaglardi’s actions led to shame, embarrassment and trauma that had a ripple effect on their future relationships.
In sentencing, Riley said he took into account Gaglardi’s age and his lack of criminal history, but he also noted Gaglardi’s abuse of position within the churches, his claim he was a trained doctor and therapist, and the duration of his crimes, which lasted from 1971 to 2017.
Besides his 155-month sentence in prison — cut to 78 months behind bars — Gaglardi will also be on a sex offender registry for 20 years and provide a DNA sample, Riley ordered.
In November 2024, Gaglardi was charged with three more counts of gross indecency and indecent assault.
An 80-year-old former pastor and therapist who is serving a prison sentence for sex crimes against 11 young male clients has been charged with more offences in Vancouver and Burnaby in the 1970s.
Raymond Howard Gaglardi was sentenced in January 2023 to six-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault and sexual exploitation against victims between the ages of 10 and 30.
The offences were committed between 1971 and 1981, when Gaglardi was working at Glad Tidings Temple in Vancouver, and between 1993 and 2015, when he was associated with Hillside Community Church in Coquitlam, according to court documents.
A number of the offences were committed at Gaglardi’s Burnaby apartment.
His victims were between the ages of 10 and 30.
“In each case, Mr. Gaglardi touched the victim in a sexual manner, in circumstances where the victim did not consent, consented on false pretenses, or consented based on Mr. Gaglardi’s exploitation of a trust relationship,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Riley said in his sentencing ruling in the case.
On Nov. 13, Gaglardi was charged with three more counts each of gross indecency and indecent assault (charges that no longer exist in the Criminal Code of Canada) against three different alleged victims in 1970, 1973 and 1974, according to the Vancouver provincial court registry.
He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on the new charges Wednesday.
The Burnaby NOW reached out to Coquitlam RCMP, which investigated the cases, for more information and was told a “full update” on the charges would be published later in the week.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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