Closing arguments set for Thursday in Freeport man’s defamation trial

By Scott Dolan
Portland Press Herald
July 22, 2015

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/07/22/closing-arguments-set-for-thursday-in-freeport-mans-defamation-trial/

Paul Kendrick, left, and Michael Geilenfeld

Lawyers will make closing arguments on Thursday in the federal defamation trial of Paul Kendrick of Freeport who is accused of widely broadcasting a false claim that the American founder of an orphanage in Haiti sexually abused the boys in his care for years.

Kendrick, 65, has passionately defended his claim that Michael Geilenfeld is a “serial child molester” and testified at the trial in U.S. District Court in Portland that what he wrote in an ongoing mass blast email campaign starting in January of 2011 is true.

Geilenfeld, 63, has repeatedly denied abusing children in his care at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Port-au-Prince in Haiti and filed suit against Kendrick in 2013, claiming Kendrick’s email campaign had so damaged his reputation that an American fundraising group for the orphanage had lost about $2 million in donations.

Geilenfeld has also accused Kendrick of using his campaign to have Geilenfeld arrested by Haitian authorities on child sex abuse charges last September. Geilenfeld remained locked up in prison in Port-au-Prince for 237 days before a Haitian judge dismissed the case. Geilenfeld was arrested in Haiti just one month before his case against Kendrick in Portland had been scheduled for trial. The trial here was delayed until his release in April, after which he was able to return to the United States, though Haitian officials had seized his passport. Geilenfeld’s accusers in Haiti have since filed an appeal reviving the case against him there, regardless of the outcome of the trial against Kendrick here.

Geilenfeld told the jurors as he testified last week that he is gay and that Haiti is a “very homophobic” country. His sexual orientation has led to his being accused of child sex abuse several times in the past, though those allegations were quickly dispelled, he testified.

“There was a perception in Haiti that a homosexual was a freak of nature and also equated to a child molester,” Geilenfeld said.

Geilenfeld testified under questioning by Kendrick’s attorney, David Walker, that he has been accused of sexually abusing children in Haiti 17 times.

Six former St. Joseph’s residents who are now adults testified at the trial here that Geilenfeld sexually abused them years ago. But when an American federal agent from the Department of Homeland Security went Haiti in 2012 to investigate Kendrick’s claims, she interviewed the men and decided not to bring charges against Geilenfeld.

The federal jury of eight women and two men is expected to begin deliberations on Thursday after closing arguments and instruction by the judge on the applicable laws in the case.

Judge John A. Woodcock Jr. said last week that he expects jurors will be asked to focus on two central issues at the end of the trial: whether Kendrick’s allegations against Geilenfeld are false and, if so, whether Kendrick made those allegations negligently.