MAINE
Portland Press Herald
BY SCOTT DOLAN STAFF WRITER
sdolan@pressherald.com | @scottddolan | 207-791-6304
In a sharp turn of events, a federal judge dismissed a complex defamation case against Paul Kendrick of Freeport on Monday, nearly a year after a jury awarded a $14.5 million verdict against him.
Kendrick lost at trial in U.S. District Court in Portland last summer, but an appellate court in Boston issued a ruling in February that put the entire case in question by asking whether the case ever belonged in federal court.
U.S. District Judge John Woodcock Jr. answered that question by backtracking through more than three years of litigation to rule that the plaintiff in the defamation lawsuit, Michael Geilenfeld, wasn’t living in the United States when he filed his claim against Kendrick and therefore the case had no grounds to be heard in a U.S. court.
The ruling dismissing the case doesn’t mean that either side necessarily wins, but more likely that the case will continue on through appeal, further arguments and possibly another trial.
Kendrick was accused of defamation after he began a widely disseminated email campaign in January 2011 accusing Geilenfeld, the American founder of an orphanage in Haiti, of sexually abusing the boys in his care. Kendrick later widened the campaign to include Hearts with Haiti, the North Carolina charity that raised donations to fund the orphanage. Kendrick declined to comment Monday other than to point out that authorities in Haiti have closed Geilenfeld’s orphanage and brought new child abuse allegations against him based on statements by more former orphans.
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