A federal jury in Miami convicted a Colorado man yesterday for sexually abusing numerous boys at the orphanage he founded and directed in Haiti.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Michael Karl Geilenfeld, 73, most recently of Littleton, founded St. Joseph’s Home for Boys — a home for orphaned, impoverished, and otherwise vulnerable children in Haiti — in 1985 and operated it for more than two decades.
During this time, Geilenfeld repeatedly travelled from the United States to Haiti, where he sexually abused the boys entrusted to his care.
The jury convicted Geilenfeld of one count of travelling in foreign commerce to engage in illicit sexual conduct and six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place between 2005 and 2010.
Each of the six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place relates to a particular victim who was a child at the time of the offence.
Each of the six victims testified about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Geilenfeld, as did four other victims who were not the subject of the charged offences.
Geilenfeld is scheduled to be sentenced on May 5 and faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison on each of the seven total counts.
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
