MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted May 14, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — The jury trial of a Freeport man being sued for slander over allegations of sexual abuse of boys at a Haitian orphanage is set to begin July 8 in U.S. District Court.
The trial was delayed after Michael Geilenfeld, a former Catholic brother, was detained in Port au Prince beginning Sept. 5 while a criminal investigation into abuse allegations was conducted, according to court documents. He was released April 29 after being exonerated.
Geilenfeld and Hearts with Haiti, a North Carolina-based nonprofit that raised money for the orphanages he ran, in February 2013 sued Paul Kendrick, 65, of Freeport. The plaintiffs alleged that Kendrick’s false allegations that Geilenfeld has sexually abused children has defamed the organization and caused fundraising events in the U.S. to be cancelled.
They are asking U.S. District Judge John Woodcock to order Kendrick to stop making the statements and to remove all those that have been published on the Internet. The lawsuit also is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
It took 237 days for Geilenfeld to be cleared of the allegations in Haiti.
“After full prosecution in the Haitian criminal justice system, the criminal court in Haiti entered judgment in his favor on all charges,” according to a document filed this month in federal court in Portland. “Most of the charges were dismissed before trial after investigation by the investigative judge, based on insufficient evidence; one charge for alleged ‘public indecency’ under Haitian criminal law was found in Geilenfeld’s favor after trial by the Haitian criminal trial judge.”
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