BishopAccountability.org

Maine clergy abuse accuser appeals $14.5 million defamation ruling

By Darren Fishell
Bangor Daily News
January 12, 2016

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/01/12/news/portland/maine-clergy-abuse-accuser-appeals-14-5-million-defamation-ruling/

Paul Kendrick, an outspoken advocate for victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, stands outside the Falmouth home of former Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Bishop Richard Malone in this 2012 file photo.

PORTLAND, Maine — A Freeport man ordered by a jury to pay $14.5 million for defaming a Catholic brother and a nonprofit based in Haiti is appealing his case to the U.S. First Circuit Court.

The attorney for Paul Kendrick, an advocate for children sexually abused by clergy, on Tuesday filed an argument with the court seeking to dismiss the case.

Catholic brother Michael Geilenfeld and the nonprofit Hearts with Haiti sued Kendrick for a campaign he launched against Geilenfeld and the North Carolina-based nonprofit for which he worked in 2011, alleging that Geilenfeld sexually abused children he had taken in at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and that the nonprofit had turned a blind eye.

After hearing testimony, including from seven men who alleged that they were sexually abused by Geilenfeld in the 1990s, a jury in Portland awarded damages of $7.5 million to Hearts with Haiti and $7 million to Geilenfeld.

The Iowa native was imprisoned for 237 days in Haiti last year during the investigation of claims of sexual abuse. A Haitian judge decided not to prosecute Geilenfeld, and he was released.

The Associated Press reported in November that police in Haiti have continued to investigate the accusations against Geilenfeld, shutting down the St. Joseph Home for Boys on Nov. 5 and seeking to detain Geilenfeld.

Kendrick’s attorney, Brent Singer, argued to the federal appeals court in a brief filed Tuesday that the federal court system did not have proper jurisdiction to handle the case because Geilenfeld lived in Haiti in 2013 when the complaint was filed.

Geilenfeld’s attorney has disputed that claim to the appeals court, arguing Geilenfeld lived in Iowa at the time.

Singer wrote residency in Haiti made Geilenfeld unable to sue in federal court and that Geilenfeld should be dismissed as a plaintiff from the case. Singer also asks for dismissal of Hearts with Haiti because of the degree to which its case rested on testimony from Geilenfeld.

Kendrick filed notice of the appeal in late November, after a U.S. District Court judge in Bangor ruled against granting Kendrick a new trial.




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