MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Darren Fishell, BDN Staff
Posted July 16, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — Former Catholic brother Michael Geilenfeld was cleared of sex abuse allegations in a controversial trial in Haiti. But those allegations resurfaced Thursday during Geilenfeld’s defamation lawsuit in federal court against Paul Kendrick, a Freeport resident who continued publicly to accuse Geilenfeld of sexually abusing minors after the trial in Haiti.
As the defamation trial neared the end of its second week in federal court in Portland, Kendrick’s attorney on Thursday introduced testimony from men in Haiti who allege that Geilenfeld abused them.
Geilenfeld, 63, and his nonprofit Hearts with Haiti in 2013 filed a lawsuit against Kendrick, 65, an advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse, alleging that Kendrick waged a “campaign of vicious, unrelenting and merciless attacks” that damaged his reputation. …
Daniel Madrigal, who now lives in Massachusetts, took the stand first, testifying in person that he eventually arrived at St. Joseph’s after a government crisis in 1994 led to the dissolution of the orphanage where he spent his early years.
“I slept in the street then,” Madrigal said.
He said he went to St. Joseph’s on the recommendation of a government social worker, where he received clean clothes, a place to stay and work in the kitchen. He said he was told he would start school the next year.
Madrigal claimed he was assaulted one day after Geilenfeld had given him a portable cassette player with two cassettes by Phil Collins and Bryan Adams.
“He touched my pants and said, ‘you’re cute,’” Madrigal said. “I didn’t speak English at that time.”
He claimed Geilenfeld later attempted to sexually assault him.
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