Michael Geilenfeld in 2024 (U.S. Embassy in Haiti)
A Colorado man has been sentenced to 210 years in prison for sexually abusing children at an orphanage he founded and ran in Haiti for decades.
Michael Geilenfeld, 73, established St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in 1985 as a place for orphaned, low-income, and at-risk children in Haiti.
According to evidence presented at his trial, Geilenfeld frequently traveled back and forth from the United States and Haiti — where he physically, sexually, and emotionally abused the boys there for whom he was trusted to care.
Geilenfeld was convicted in February of one count of traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct and six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place between 2005 and 2010, with each of the latter charges relating to a separate child victim, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
As U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz announced the maximum sentence he could inside a Miami courtroom on Friday, those present applauded.
“The defendant preyed upon some of the most vulnerable children in the world,” Leibowitz said, according to a report by The Miami Herald. “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.”
“This orphanage destroyed my childhood,” a 24-year-old victim testified on Friday about the institution Geilenfeld founded, according to the outlet. “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.”
Ten victims in total testified in the case — six directly involved in the charges against Geilenfeld and four others the DOJ listed as victims.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. initiative established by the DOJ to battle the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
“The defendant’s sustained sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of some of the most vulnerable children in the world is intolerable,” said Matthew Galeotti, chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
“For decades, Geilenfeld used his position of trust and access to exploit vulnerable children under the guise of humanitarian work,” added Assistant Director Jose Perez of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division. “We are grateful to those victims who came forward to report their abuse.”
