MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted April 26, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — A federal judge has ordered a Freeport man being sued for slander over allegations of sexual abuse of boys at a Haitian orphanage to pay $8,000 toward the plaintiffs’ legal fees as punishment for defying a court order.
U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock did not say when Paul Kendrick, 65, would have to pay the Portland attorneys representing Hearts with Haiti, a North Carolina-based nonprofit that raised money for orphanages run by former Catholic brother Michael Geilenfeld.
The judge found on Feb. 20, following a hearing the previous month, that Kendrick had violated a court order not to make public documents that had been gathered during the discovery process.
Lawyers for Hearts with Haiti sought more $28,000 in reimbursement. Kendrick’s attorneys, based in Bangor, said work on the motions seeking the sanction should have cost about $3,800.
Woodcock on Wednesday issued the order specifying how much Kendrick would be fined. Kendrick, who has maintained that Geilenfeld has sexually abused boys for decades, has said he would go to jail rather than pay the charity’s legal fees.
“I cannot in good conscience write a check to people who kept secret information that adversely affects the safety, protection and well-being of children,” Kendrick said in an email dated March 1. “I will not pay these lawyers one cent. If so ordered by the judge, I will sit in a jail cell.”
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