Haitian child abuse case dismissed
A judge in Haiti has dismissed the case against a man with ties to the Triangle accused of abusing residents of an orphanage he has run for three decades in the Haitian capital.
Michael Geilenfeld, who was arrested Sept. 5, was released Wednesday after a brief trial before a judge in Port-au-Prince.
Five former residents of the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys had accused Geilenfeld of physical and sexual abuse. None of the alleged victims, all adults now, testified at the trial.
Defense lawyer Alain Lemithe said the accusations were vague and unsubstantiated.
“They had no proof whatsoever, so he has been released,” Lemithe said Thursday.
Geilenfeld, 63, founded the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in 1985. His charity grew to encompass three homes, a guest house for missionaries and a dance troupe that toured the U.S. and Canada to promote the organization.
North Carolina is known for sending outsized numbers of donations and volunteers to Haiti, Geilenfeld noted during a 2008 interview with The News & Observer. He said that his group’s financial heart was in the Triangle, where a host of churches have sent contributions and volunteers and where the nonprofit Hearts with Haiti acts as his U.S. financial wing.
His supporters, including members of several Triangle churches, maintained Geilenfeld’s innocence. They said his arrest was part of a caustic, years-long effort by an activist in Maine who campaigns against sexual abuse and who has been trying to destroy him.
In 2013, Geilenfeld and Hearts with Haiti filed a defamation suit against the activist, Paul Kendrick, who had publicized what they called “false and heinous” allegations of child sexual and physical abuse that the organization said had been investigated and determined to be false.
A trial in that case was put on hold because of Geilenfeld’s arrest
but is now expected to resume.
This story was originally published April 30, 2015 at 8:50 PM with the headline "Haitian child abuse case dismissed."