MIAMI — A jury in Miami has convicted the founder of an orphanage in Haiti of sexually abusing boys at the facility in Port-au-Prince.

Court records show 73-year-old Michael Geilenfeld was found guilty Thursday night of six counts of engaging in illicit sexual contact with minors in a foreign country and one count of traveling from Miami to Haiti for that illegal reason.

He faces up to 30 years in prison on each charge at his May 5 sentencing before U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz.

The trial included testimony from six Haitian men who said they were abused while living at Geilenfeld’s St. Joseph’s Home for Boys between 2005 and 2010. The boys, now in their 20s, were between 9 and 13 at the time.

Haitian authorities arrested Geilenfeld in September 2014 based on allegations brought by Paul Kendrick, a Freeport, Maine, resident, after Kendrick said he spoke to young men who said Geilenfeld abused them as boys in Port-au-Prince.

Kendrick accused Geilenfeld of being a serial pedophile and was twice sued by Geilenfeld for defamation. Geilenfeld called the claims “vicious, vile lies,” and his case was dismissed in 2015 after he spent 237 days in prison in Haiti.

He and a charity associated with the orphanage, Hearts for Haiti, sued Kendrick in federal court in Maine, blaming Kendrick for Geilenfeld’s imprisonment, damage to his reputation, and the loss of millions of dollars in donations.

Kendrick’s insurance companies ended the lawsuit in 2019 by paying $3 million to Hearts with Haiti, but nothing to Geilenfeld.

Geilenfeld, who founded the orphanage in 1985, had pleaded not guilty. The orphanage, one of several Geilenfeld operated in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, was closed in 2014.

Abuse allegations against Geilenfeld in Haiti have yet to be resolved.