MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Beth Brogan, BDN Staff
Posted July 07, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — Opening arguments began Tuesday in the civil suit against a Freeport man sued in 2013 for defamation by a former Catholic brother from Haiti and his nonprofit organization.
Attorney Peter DeTroy described his client, 63-year-old Michael Geilenfeld, the former Catholic brother, as “a remarkable person … fueled by a dream to found a home for the cast-out, lost boys of Haiti.”
DeTroy then told the jury in U.S. District Court in Portland that Paul Kendrick, 65, of Freeport, an outspoken advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse, waged a “campaign of vicious, unrelenting and merciless attacks” on Geilenfeld that left him and Hearts with Haiti, the North-Carolina nonprofit for which he works, unable to raise money to rebuild orphanages following a 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
David Walker, who represents Kendrick, argued that his client was raising public awareness about alleged abuse of children. He told the jury Tuesday, “This case is about one thing, and that’s the sexual abuse of children.”
Walker on Tuesday ran through a list of allegations of sexual abuse by Geilenfeld that Kendrick’s attorney said began in 1987. He said evidence would show that board members of Hearts with Haiti met repeatedly about the issue, ultimately hiring a former Federal Bureau of Investigations official to investigate Geilenfeld before declining to release their report.
Both attorneys said they would present the jury with testimony from young men who lived in the orphanages that would support their cases.
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