MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Darren Fishell, BDN Staff
Posted July 23, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — Jurors entered deliberations Thursday over whether a Freeport advocate for children sexually abused by clergy members defamed the operator of an orphanage in Haiti.
At issue is a public awareness campaign launched by Paul Kendrick, 65, against 63-year-old Catholic brother Michael Geilenfeld and the North Carolina-based nonprofit for which he worked in 2011. Kendrick argues that Geilenfeld sexually abused boys he had taken in at an orphanage in Port Au Prince, Haiti, and that the nonprofit had turned a blind eye.
Geilenfeld and the nonprofit orphanage sued Kendrick for defamation and are seeking compensation for damage to their reputation and an estimated loss of more than $2 million in donations.
Attorneys for both sides delivered closing arguments Thursday to a 10-person jury that will need to return a unanimous verdict to rule against Kendrick in the defamation charges pursued by Geilenfeld and the nonprofit Hearts with Haiti.
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