MAINE
Portland Press Herald
Paul Kendrick’s relentless allegations of molestation by a Haiti orphanage founder got him nowhere, except taken to court. Then, a break – the surprise arrest of his target.
BY SCOTT DOLAN STAFF WRITER
sdolan@pressherald.com | @scottddolan
Freeport resident Paul Kendrick has been so dogged in spreading his often unwelcome message about victims of child sex abuse that his past efforts have gotten him banned from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland and threatened with formal rebuke from the Roman Catholic Church.
That didn’t stop him.
If anything, Kendrick’s message has become even more insistent in the past few years as he focused on an American man who founded an orphanage decades ago for impoverished boys in Haiti. Kendrick has accused the man, whom he has never met, of raping many youths in his care.
Since 2011, Kendrick has made those accusations against 62-year-old Michael Geilenfeld in a torrent of letters, hundreds of emails, Web postings and radio broadcasts. He made so many allegations that the orphanage founder and an American nonprofit organization that raises money to fund his Haitian efforts, Hearts with Haiti, sued Kendrick for defamation last year in federal court.
But Kendrick, scheduled to defend himself against the charge at a U.S. District Court trial in Portland starting Oct. 7, is far from deterred. He feels encouraged.
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