MAINE
Portland Press Herald
BY SCOTT DOLAN STAFF WRITER
Freeport resident Paul Kendrick blames himself that an investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found no evidence to support his widely broadcast claim that the American founder of an orphanage in Haiti had sexually abused many of the boys in his care.
Kendrick, 65, testified Tuesday in his own defense during the third week of his trial in U.S. District Court in Portland on civil charges of defamation and false imprisonment brought against him by the 63-year-old orphanage director, Michael Geilenfeld.
Kendrick said that a group of former residents of St. Joseph’s Home for Boys had admitted to him and to his associates in Haiti that Geilenfeld had sexually abused them, but he had not anticipated that the men wouldn’t repeat those accusations when they were interviewed by a federal Homeland Security investigator who flew to Haiti to talk to them.
Kendrick’s testimony grew testy at times, especially as Geilenfeld’s attorney, Peter DeTroy, cross-examined him pointedly about the Homeland Security investigation. That investigation was closed in January 2013 without charges against Geilenfeld. DeTroy also questioned Kendrick about a failed lawsuit brought by Kendrick’s associates in the Haitian judicial system that put Geilenfeld in jail there for 237 days, before a Haitian judge dismissed the case.
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