The De­part­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ) says a man from the state of Col­orado. was sen­tenced on Fri­day to 210 years in prison for sex­u­al­ly abus­ing sev­er­al chil­dren 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, Col­orado, 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, the DOJ said Geilen­feld re­peat­ed­ly trav­eled from the Unit­ed States to Haiti, “where he sex­u­al­ly abused the boys en­trust­ed to his care.:

The DOJ said he al­so “phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly abused the chil­dren in the home, in­clud­ing through phys­i­cal as­sault and oth­er forms of pun­ish­ment.”

In Feb­ru­ary 2025, a fed­er­al ju­ry con­vict­ed Geilen­feld 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.

Each of the six counts of en­gag­ing in il­lic­it sex­u­al con­duct re­lates to a sep­a­rate vic­tim who was a child at the time of the of­fense.

At tri­al, the DOJ said these six vic­tims tes­ti­fied about the sex­u­al abuse they suf­fered at the hands of Geilen­feld and the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact it had on them, as did oth­er vic­tims — now adults — who were not the sub­ject of the charged of­fens­es.

he vic­tims and wit­ness­es al­so de­scribed the phys­i­cal abuse Geilen­feld in­flict­ed on his vic­tims and the ma­nip­u­la­tion that he em­ployed to keep his op­er­a­tion run­ning and fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port­ed by oth­ers.

“The de­fen­dant’s sus­tained sex­u­al, phys­i­cal, and emo­tion­al abuse of some of the most vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren in the world is in­tol­er­a­ble,” said Matthew Ga­le­ot­ti, head of the Jus­tice De­part­ment’s Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion. “This pros­e­cu­tion demon­strates the de­part­ment’s com­mit­ment to se­cur­ing jus­tice for chil­dren harmed by crim­i­nals who trav­el abroad from the Unit­ed States to com­mit their crimes.

“We thank our part­ners for work­ing with us to en­sure that the de­fen­dant can nev­er harm an­oth­er child,” he added.

Jose A. Perez, as­sis­tant di­rec­tor of the FBI Crim­i­nal In­ves­tiga­tive Di­vi­sion, said: “This sen­tenc­ing marks the end of a case built on the courage of sur­vivors and the ded­i­ca­tion of in­ves­ti­ga­tors/

“For decades, Geilen­feld used his po­si­tion of trust and ac­cess to ex­ploit vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren un­der the guise of hu­man­i­tar­i­an work,” he said. “We are grate­ful to those vic­tims who came for­ward to re­port their abuse.

“The FBI is com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing those who com­mit crimes against chil­dren no mat­ter where they oc­cur or how long ago they were com­mit­ted,” Perez added.

WASH­ING­TON, May 24, CMC