A jury in Miami has convicted the founder of an orphanage in Haiti of sexually abusing boys at the facility in Port-au-Prince.
Court records show 73-year-old Michael Geilenfeld, of Colorado, was found guilty Thursday night of six counts of engaging in illicit sexual contact with minors in a foreign country and one count of traveling from Miami to Haiti for that illegal reason.
Geilenfeld, who most recently lived in Littleton, founded the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in 1985 and operated it for more than 20 years, traveling between the United States and Haiti, “where he sexually abused the boys entrusted to his care,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.
He faces up to 30 years in prison on each charge at his May 5 sentencing before U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz.
The trial included testimony from six Haitian men who said they were abused while living at the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys between 2005 and 2010. The boys, now in their 20s, were between 9 and 13 at the time.
Geilenfeld, who was arrested in Denver in January 2024, had pleaded not guilty.
The orphanage, one of several Geilenfeld operated in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, was closed in 2014.
Abuse allegations against Geilenfeld in Haiti have yet to be resolved.
Geilenfeld previously sued a Maine activist over accusations he abused boys in Haiti, calling the claims “vicious, vile lies,” before an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI led to an indictment contending he traveled from Miami to the island nation “for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person under 18.”
Geilenfeld and North Carolina-based Hearts with Haiti sued the activist, Paul Kendrick, who accused Geilenfeld of being a serial pedophile after speaking to young men who claimed they were abused by Geilenfeld as boys in Port-au-Prince, where Geilenfeld founded the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in 1985.
In a federal civil lawsuit in Maine, Geilenfeld and the charity blamed Kendrick for Geilenfeld’s 237-day imprisonment in Haiti, damage to his reputation and the loss of millions of dollars in donations.
The activist’s insurance companies ended the lawsuit in 2019 by paying $3 million to Hearts with Haiti, but nothing to Geilenfeld.
Authorities in Haiti have long investigated sex abuse allegations against Geilenfeld, who was arrested in the Caribbean country in September 2014 but released a year later after his case was dismissed.
The alleged victims, who did not appear in court in Haiti, were granted an appeal, but the case had yet to go to trial at the time of his U.S. arrest as Haiti’s judicial system continues to crumble amid widespread corruption and a spike in gang violence.
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