Years before a federal jury convicted Michael Geilenfeld of sexually abusing boys in his care, boys from St. Joseph Family had already been telling people what they said happened to them. Jana Sullivan follows those disclosures in “Michael Geilenfeld and the Boys Who Kept Telling,” keeping the boys themselves at the center of the chronology. At the same time, organizations in the United States were still raising money for St. Joseph Family while investigators and lawyers argued over the allegations. The boys were speaking while adults with money and established organizations behind them controlled much of the response.
I keep coming back to the power difference between boys describing abuse and adults who had money and organizations able to answer them publicly. Geilenfeld was personally tied to the mission’s property and banking while American nonprofits helped finance its work. Hearts With Haiti hired an investigator to examine the allegations, and years of litigation followed. The boys were describing abuse while adults backed by established organizations were deciding how those allegations would be handled and contested.
While the Boys Were Speaking
In the federal defamation case, the court said St. Joseph Family had “no independent legal identity” and could not bring its own claim. Geilenfeld could pursue business damages only if he proved that he owned and operated it as an unincorporated business. During the later jurisdiction fight, the court found that three Haitian properties containing St. Joseph’s Home for Boys, Wings of Hope, Trinity House, and Lekòl Sen Trinite were titled in his name. Geilenfeld said the properties were used only for the mission, and the court made no finding that he had misused them.
The banking relationship ran through Geilenfeld personally as well, including an Iowa State Bank account he called his “core personal bank account.” The court found that St. Joseph’s Home had been added to that account in 1995, and Geilenfeld said he kept the mission’s banking in Iowa since he did not trust Haitian banks. He also said the money was not used for unrelated personal expenses, while the court described the account as one that “serviced the Haitian operation.” For boys trying to describe abuse inside St. Joseph Family, the institution around them was financially tied to the same man they were accusing.
Hearts With Haiti says it began supporting St. Joseph Family in 2001, years before the later federal prosecution. A 2014 federal order described the North Carolina nonprofit as a substantial financial contributor that solicited and accepted donations across the United States. The boys’ allegations were unfolding inside a mission that continued receiving organized financial support from Americans. That financial relationship continued after the allegations surfaced and while the dispute moved into court.
Federal authorities investigated the allegations and closed that investigation in 2012 without filing charges. A federal prosecutor in North Carolina declined prosecution after concluding that the investigation had produced insufficient proof of criminal conduct. Paul Kendrick challenged the government materials describing that decision, and the court overruled his objections. For the boys, the first federal investigation ended without charges while their allegations remained publicly contested.
Hearts With Haiti also commissioned its own investigation after the allegations surfaced. Supporters were told in 2011 that a third party was being brought in, and former FBI agent Edward Clark was identified as the investigator. A later sanctions order refers to a report prepared by Clark and attorney Rosario Rizzo, while Hearts With Haiti now says the investigation found no substantiating support and raised doubts about the allegations. That conclusion became part of the organization’s public response while the boys continued saying they had been abused.
When the Allegations Became a Legal Fight
Hearts With Haiti and Geilenfeld sued Kendrick in federal court in 2013, turning the dispute over the allegations into years of litigation. They won a jury verdict in 2015, although the district court later dismissed the case after finding that Geilenfeld was domiciled in Haiti and that federal diversity jurisdiction was absent. The First Circuit affirmed that dismissal, and a Maine court later said the federal verdicts had been set aside and were neither valid nor final. The legal fight continued in Maine state court after the federal case ended.
Friends of SJF was created in Iowa in 2015 while that litigation was still underway, and its filings list Geilenfeld as president for the 2016 and 2017 reporting years. The 2017 filing also identifies Walnes Cangas as assistant director of St. Joseph Family Mission and Jacky Asse as director of Wings of Hope. Board members included Shelley Wiley, Paul D’Oliveira, and Renee Dietrich, each of whom also appeared elsewhere around Hearts With Haiti or St. Joseph Family. The same return reported $127,427 in program-service expenses, all listed as grants, for St. Joseph Family Mission and other religious organizations in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The same people kept appearing across the organizations supporting St. Joseph Family during those years. Shelley Wiley had served on Hearts With Haiti’s board and testified in Geilenfeld’s favor, while Paul D’Oliveira appeared in a sworn filing as a Hearts With Haiti board member before later serving on Friends of SJF. Renee Dietrich held roles involving St. Joseph Family, Hearts With Haiti, and Friends of SJF during the same broader period. For the boys, these were adults and organizations with money and legal representation responding to allegations that began with children describing abuse.
The Maine litigation eventually ended with an insurance-funded settlement, although published figures differ on the amount. Associated Press reporting at the time, citing Kendrick’s attorney, said two insurers paid $3 million to Hearts With Haiti and nothing to Geilenfeld, while later Miami Herald reporting put the insurance payment at $3.5 million. Hearts With Haiti’s tax return reported $1,239,698 in other revenue, and a later Schedule A labels that same amount “LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT.” By then, allegations first made by boys and young men had been surrounded by years of litigation involving millions of dollars.
Hearts With Haiti’s 2022 return shows that substantial support for St. Joseph Family continued long after those allegations first surfaced. The organization reported $421,969 in program expenses and grants for St. Joseph Family operations and rebuilding the home for boys, while Schedule F lists a cash grant for the same amount described as “HOMELESS CHILDREN.” The same Schedule F shows a “No” answer when Hearts With Haiti was asked whether it maintained materials substantiating each foreign grant amount, the recipient’s eligibility, and the selection criteria used. The form leaves those two facts side by side, hundreds of thousands of dollars in reported support alongside a “No” answer to the substantiation question.
The Jury Heard the Boys Years Later
Before the criminal trial, Hearts With Haiti was still identifying people in its own tax filings as “SJF MEMBER.” Its FY2023 return uses that label for Walnes Cangas and Bill Nathan, while the FY2024 return keeps the designation for Cangas. In January 2024, Executive Director Emily Everett told the News & Observer that Geilenfeld “was never an employee, volunteer nor member” of the Hearts With Haiti board. After his conviction and sentencing, Hearts With Haiti’s own website said that before the accusations he had served on its volunteer board, leaving two different public descriptions of his history with the organization.
The later federal criminal case reached a jury in Miami in February 2025 after a separate investigation by HSI and the FBI. The jury convicted Geilenfeld of one count of traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of illicit sexual conduct and six counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place. Each of the six charged victims testified, and the Justice Department said four additional victims also testified about sexual abuse outside the charged counts. Judge David Leibowitz sentenced Geilenfeld to 210 years in prison that May after hearing a case built around men describing what had happened to them when they were boys.
The Justice Department’s sentencing announcement said victims and witnesses described manipulation Geilenfeld used to keep his operation running and financially supported by others. That line is difficult to read without thinking about the American organizations that kept the mission funded during those years. Hearts With Haiti said after sentencing that its relationship with Geilenfeld had ended more than a decade earlier and that it had no contact or involvement with him during that period. The organization also said it had strengthened policies and clarified expectations for fund recipients. Hearts With Haiti said another review of its practices had begun.
Hearts With Haiti’s relationship with St. Joseph Family continued after Geilenfeld’s conviction while the organization publicly separated itself from him. Its current materials say St. Joseph Family submits annual budgets and quarterly financial statements for Hearts With Haiti to review. Hearts With Haiti also says it maintains banking systems used to move money to Haiti as part of that relationship. In 2026, St. Joseph Family leadership ran a Cultivating Hope in Haiti fundraiser for Hearts With Haiti.