A man who formerly served as a pastor at a church founded by the-late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. in 1956 has been convicted of stalking a former member and divorced mother of two.
Sergio Guardia, who had served as a pastor for the Spanish-speaking ministry at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, was convicted earlier this month of two counts of burglary and one count of stalking.
Guardia was arrested in 2023 after he unlawfully entered the home of Marie Columna, a woman who left the church in 2016. Guardia had been reportedly stalking her for years.
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“I do feel like I’ve gotten my power back, power that he took,” she told the Lynchburg-based news outlet WSET. “As powerful as that position of authority as a pastor may seem and as powerful as that church may seem, they have power too.”
Guardia is scheduled to be sentenced in August.
A former employee of the Southern Baptist Convention, Guardia reportedly began making advances toward Columna shortly after her divorce, prompting her to install cameras on her property.
In November 2023, cameras caught Guardia entering Columna’s home, with authorities arresting the then 48-year-old pastor and charging him with two counts of breaking and entering, and one count of stalking.
When Inside Edition Digital reached out to the SBC of Virginia for comment following his arrest, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination released a statement explaining that Guardia was no longer employed by the organization.
“Sergio Guardia is no longer employed by the SBC of Virginia. He resigned in November,” the SBC said in a statement to Inside Edition Digital in December 2023.
“We have been made aware that he is dealing with legal matters, and because of the legalities involved we have no further comment. We continue to pray for the Guardia family during this time.”
In February 2024, a judge certified the charges against Guardia, and issued a protective order on behalf of Columna and her children, with her friend, Ashley Easter, telling WSET at the time that she supported the court order.
“She should have a protective order because who knows why he was going into her house, who knows why he was going into her daughter’s bedroom. I think she definitely needs to have a protective order for that,” said Easter. “He was her pastor, so there’s this level of what I would call spiritual abuse, where he’s in a position of power and trust over her, which makes a person more vulnerable.”
