1. Memo for Colon Willoughby, Esq.
From Rosario Mario F. Rizzo, Esq.
Re: St Joseph Family & Haitian 1.B.E.S.R. Certification Proces,~
Date: June 26, 2014
The Saint Joseph Family of Homes for Boys SJF have been in good standing with the Haitian
authorities for over 25 years. The Haitian authorities have referred many, many children to the
SJF since its founding in 1985. The Institut du Bien-&reSocial et de Recherches (IBESR), Mme.
Villedroiun, Director, is the Haitian agency that certifies children's residential homes in Haiti.
After the earthquake, the IBESR found that it was very hard to track children in orphanages in
Haiti, of which there were many. The IBESR decided to create a new much more stringent
certification process for children's residential homes in Haiti, while at the same time phasing out
the majority of orphanages in Haiti. Over the last few years, IBESR has not been certifying
homes, but has been allowing all children's residential homes and orphanage certifications to
- expire in favor of implementing a new certification process. While the new certification process
is implemented, the IBESR allows homes that have expired certifications to remain open.
In the first year of this new, enhanced certification process, 2012, the IBESR decided to
certify only 10 children's homes in Haiti. The new certification process takes over a year, and
requires staff training, program and procedure creation and review. The process also requires
that the organization hire'a full time social worker, recommended by the IBESR. Each IBESR
sanctioned social worker is paid by the home that employs him, works in the home(s), and
reports back to the IBESR weekly for a year. Both during and at the end of this preparation year,
the IBESR visits the homes and makes a final recommendation for approval and certification.
In 2012, the IBESR invited all three of the SJF homes to apply for certification, i.e.: three
of the first ten to be certified in Haiti. The IBESR believed that the St. Joseph Family provided
better services and a better quality of life for the children in its care than most other children's
homes in Haiti. The IBESR wanted the SJF homes to serve as an example of and to set the
standard for a well-run children's home in Haiti. They wanted SJF to set a higher bar for
performance and quality.
Wings of Hope, the SJF home for special needs children, was the first of the ten homes to
be certified by the IBESR under this new, tough certification process. Wings of Hope retains
this certification today.
The other two SJF homes, Trinity House in Jacmel and St. Joseph Home for Boys in
Petionville, were in the final stages of approval for full certification, and were told that they
would receive their final certifications around the beginning of 2014. However, Paul Kendrick,
with the help of Cyrus Sibert, a Haitian journalist and self-appointed child advocate,
intentionally interfered with the process.
At the beginning of 2014, Kendrick and Sibert renewed their campaign against Michael
Geilenfeld and SJF, bombarding the IBESR with hundreds of emails, phone calls, letters and
internet postings malting defamatory and unfounded statementsof child abuse at the SJF homes.

2. Because of the outrageousness and false exigency of Kendriclcand Sibert's false reports to the
IBESR, on February 3, 2014 the IBESR and the Haitian National Police mounted a SWAT-type
raid on the SJF Home for Boys in Petionville, the facility where Michael Geilenfeld lives,
complete with automatic weapons. The IBESR removed seven children under the age of 14,
placing them in an IBESR affiliated orphanage. The IBESR allowed older children to remain at
this particular home. Of the children removed by IBESR only one was an orphan. The other
children had been placed in SJF care by their families who were too poor to care for them.
On February 5,2014, Mme. Villedroiun met with an attorney for SJF. Because of the
nature of Kendrick's heinous allegations and the fact that the allegations are the subject of a
defamation suit in the US., IBESR has communicated that it will delay its certification of the
two SJF homes until the defamation action against Kendrick is resolved at trial in October if not
before.
The IBESR investigation into the wellbeing of the children found no evidence of child
abuse or mistreatment. On April 15, 2014, the IBESR returned six of the seven children to their
families, with the caveat that they not be returned to SJF until the defamation case is over. The
IBESR also decided to freeze the final approval for the other two SJF homes. The IBESR
eventually told SJF's attorney that the only reason that it fioze the final approval for each of the
home's certifications was because of the voluminous correspondences and contacts orchestrated
by Kendriclcand Sibert.
. - r
SJF has never had any of its three certifications revolted. The re-certifications of the
Petionville and Jacmel facilities were merely put on hold because of Kendriclc and Sibert.