One by one they spoke of their pain, their nightmares and shame, and the suicidal thoughts.
Amid pleas for psychological help and justice, they described how the American founder of their Port-au-Prince orphanage lured them in with the promise of an education and a better life.
But Michael Karl Geilenfeld, who operated several orphanages and a home for the disabled in Haiti over a span of 30 years, was no “man of God,” the 10 men told a U.S. federal judge inside a Miami court room.
Instead, he was a criminal, a “diabolical psychopath,” who used cookies and trips to the U.S. to steal their childhood as he sexually and physically abused them. Then he used his power, money and the white color of his skin to shut them down when they tried to get help.
“This orphanage destroyed my childhood,” a 24-year-old testified on Friday morning about the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys. “There is no amount of love that can make me forget. The only thing that can make me forget is, I have to leave this earth. Only death.”
On Friday, after the young man and nine other victims of Geilenfeld detailed the sexual, physical and verbal abuse they endured at his hands — and their lingering trauma, including guilt and shame — U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz sentenced Geilenfeld to 210 years in prison.
The sentencing, which amounts to life imprisonment given Geilenfeld’s 73 years of age, was “excessive,” defense attorney Raymond D’Arsey Houlihan III said. Houlihan had tried to get a reduced sentence, citing Geilenfeld’s age, bouts with high blood pressure and glaucoma, and a “modest existence.”
“He lived quietly in Colorado from the time he returned to the time of his arrest,” Houlihan said, referring to the former missionary’s return to the United States from the Dominican Republican, to which he fled with the help of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince after he was jailed in Haiti on sex-abuse allegations. Houlihan plans to appeal his client’s conviction.
After years of evading justice in both Haiti and accusations in the U.S., Geilenfeld was arrested last year in Colorado after Homeland Security Investigations was joined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to take another look at the allegations.
He was flown to Miami where he was denied bond by Leibowitz. After a three-week trial in February, where he came face-to-face with some of his accusers about abuse dating back to the 1980s, a 12-person federal jury found him guilty of six counts of engaging in illicit sexual contact with minors in a foreign place and one count of traveling from Miami to Haiti for that purpose.
Each count carried maximum punishment of 30 years, hence Geilenfeld’s 210-year prison sentence.
‘The worst of the worst’
For years, allegations of Geilenfeld’s appetite for young boys dogged him as he took in street boys into his orphanage and secured thousands in charitable gifts. But for years, he managed to avoid jail time and conviction, even winning a million-dollar civil suit in Maine. One of his victims spoke of how he was told to shut his mouth when he complained to a Haitian official at the child welfare office, and how police were deployed to arrest him and another young man when they went to a local radio station to complain.
“You managed to have all of the judges, police who were corrupt,” the man, 45-years-old, said in Creole directly to Geilenfeld, who was wearing an olive-green prison uniform. “Four-hundred years will not be enough for what this monster did to kids.”
In the end, Leibowitz gave Geilenfeld, the maximum he could as the room burst into applause. The one-time missionary had “testified and lied” on the stand and obstructed justice, the judge said about Geilenfeld. Even on Friday, when offered the opportunity to say something to the court and to his victims, Geilenfeld did not. “That says all you need to know about the history and characteristics of this defendant,” Leibowitz said.
“The defendant preyed upon some of the most vulnerable children in the world. That’s what he did. That’s not a metaphor: the trials, crises and tribulations of the country of Haiti and all that it’s gone through,” the judge said.
Leibowitz, who was visibly moved during the two hours of testimony, said Geilenfeld used domination and exerted control over them. When they got out of line, he then threatened them.
“He used his power. He used the color of his skin,” Leibowitz said. Then, quoting one of the gentlemen who read his comments from a prepared letter, Leibowitz said Geilenfeld had an effect “of being a man of God.” The 9-year-olds who were taken in by him because they had nowhere to go “did nothing to deserve this” said the judge.
Outside of the victims, others have tried to bring Geilenfeld to justice for years. He responded with separate defamation lawsuits, one in Atlanta, which he lost, and another in Maine that he eventually won. The Atlanta suit was against Valerie Dirksen, a child advocate who had worked in Haiti’s orphanages. She became aware of the abuse in 2011 and had worked hard for the victims.
In the Maine lawsuit, he was a co-plaintiff alongside the North Carolina nonprofit, Hearts with Haiti, which donated to his orphanage.
They sued Paul Kendrick, a Maine resident who had accused Geilenfeld of being a serial pedophile and had led a campaign demanding justice for his Haitian victims. Kendrick’s insurance company in the fall of 2019 settled the six-year-old defamation case, and agreed to pay Hearts with Haiti $3 million but nothing to Geilenfeld.
Hearts with Haiti previously told the Miami Herald that “Geilenfeld was never an employee, volunteer nor member of the Hearts with Haiti Board of Directors.”
“Hearts with Haiti has no knowledge regarding the guilt or innocence of Michael Geilenfeld concerning these federal charges,” the organization said after his arrest.
This time around, there was “so much evidence” in the case, the judge said, because the brothers of the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys made a decision that they were not just victims. They protected themselves and they protected others.
“He took something from them,” Leibowitz said, noting that using charities, one of which was connected with Mother Theresa, as “a plaything” needs to be deterred. “This is the worst of the worst.”
Leibowitz said he had prepared a speech before the sentencing. But after listening to 10 of Leibowitz’s victims, some of whom had testified during the trial about how Geilenfeld spent years discrediting them, there wasn’t much left to say. Looking straight out into the courtroom, he offered a closing statement: “He did not beat you. You beat him.”
Courageous testimony
Geilenfeld’s relationship with Haiti dated as far back as the 1980s. During that time, he operated at least three different facilities. It was his involvement at St. Joseph’s, an orphanage that took in street kids, that was most problematic. Some of the children were taken there by other agencies and others by relatives who couldn’t care for them, a common practice in the poverty-stricken country.
“Sometimes you feel you are not human, you are not from this world,” said one of the first individuals to provide a statement. “When you are a victim, you are a victim for life. This, you are going to live with it, you are going to die with it and you hope your kids never know.”
Throughout their testimonies on Friday, there were common themes: The abuse was so traumatizing that those who are married haven’t shared what happened with their wives and pray their children will never learn the truth. Instead of an education, they received lifetime scars. Decades later, they still have nightmares.
Though the men have now formed a bond and have compiled their own list of victims, they still can’t confide in each other about what they underwent. And years later, the older ones still feel guilt about being unable to protect their younger brothers despite confronting Geilenfeld about whether he was still abusing children.
At one moment, one of his first victims broke down while listing to another testify. Later, he said, he had mixed emotions. It was a good day, but also a bad day in having to relive what happened.
“We’ve been telling our story for years and nobody believed us,” said Maxceau Cylla, who said he wasn’t sexually abused by Geilenfeld but was often beaten up by him before he escaped in 1995 during a trip to Michigan. “They told us we were ungrateful, and Michael was doing good things. ‘Why would you lie on him like that?’”
“It’s been 30 to 40 years,” said Cylla, 49, who was 12 when he went to the orphanage and was part of a dancing troupe that Geilenfeld would bring to the United States to raise money. “A lot of people when they go to Haiti, they prey on kids. We don’t have a government but I am hoping the Haitian government will step up and start cracking down on those groups.”
Daniel Madrigal said if there is a lesson from what has happened it is that people should listen to their children.
“When you have kids that tell you something, just believe them,” he said. “We tried so hard for the last 20, 30 years but nobody understand, nobody believed. People thought it was about the money.
“It’s not my fault [that] I grew up in the streets,” he said. “It’s not my fault to have no mother, no dad. Somebody takes me to the orphanage and I think they are going to save my life and what they do is they destroyed my life.”
One of the victims testified that Geilenfeld still has supporters in Haiti, where they are depending on him for rent and food. He told the judge that after individuals learned he was testifying against Geilenfeld, his wife was kidnapped, raped and burned.
“Michael, you are a coward,” said one of the men. He read from prepared remarks in which he also told Geilenfeld he was “a diabolical psychopath” who reminded him of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, where he now lives.
“You did your best to break me. For a long time, I blamed myself,” he said, adding: “After all, you were such a good storyteller. Michael, you stole from everyone you met … you stole my identify. You stole who I am.”
Breaking down in tears, the man told the judge he was there on behalf of all the other victims, of whom he believes there are “hundreds.” He was begging for justice.
Geilenfeld not only deserves the full stance of 210 years, he “deserves this 10 times over,” the man said.
“He needs to spend his remaining days locked up, and throw away the key so he cannot abuse any more children.”
Story by Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
