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U.S. NEWS Thursday 10 OcTOber 2019
Politician charged in human trafficking adoption scheme

By JONATHAN J. COOPER Prosecutors say Petersen in less than two years, ac-
Associated Press used associates there to cording to court docu-
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizo- recruit pregnant women ments.
na politician ran an adop- by offering many of them Petersen's Mesa, Arizona,
tion fraud scheme that $10,000 each to give up home is worth more than
promised pregnant women their babies for adoption. $600,000 and located in an
thousands of dollars to lure Petersen would pay for the affluent, gated community.
them from a Pacific Island women to travel to the U.S. The Utah probe began af-
nation to the U.S., where days or months before giv- ter investigators got a call
they were crammed into ing birth and live in a home to a human-trafficking tip
houses to wait to give birth, that he owned until deliver- line in October 2017. Staff
sometimes with little to no ing the baby, according to at several hospitals in the
prenatal care in what pros- the court records. Salt Lake City area would
ecutors called a human The expecting mothers eventually report an "influx"
smuggling case. were often crowded in of women from the Mar-
Paul Petersen, the Repub- the homes, with Marshal- shall Islands giving birth and This undated photo provided by the Maricopa County Asses-
lican assessor of Arizona's lese women Petersen em- putting their babies up for sor's Office shows Assessor Paul Petersen.
most populous county, was ployed helping with things adoption, often accompa- Associated Press
charged in Utah, Arizona like translation, transporta- nied by the same woman.
and Arkansas with counts tion, legal documents and The scheme defrauded Republic of the Marshall tices in the past. An Arizona
including human smug- applications for Medicaid Arizona's Medicaid system Islands, Marshallese citi- juvenile court judge in 2016
gling, sale of a child, fraud, benefits, prosecutors said. of $800,000 because the zens can enter the U.S. and denied a couple's request
forgery and conspiracy to Women got little to no pre- women had no intention of work without a visa, unless to adopt a child born to
commit money laundering. natal care in Utah, and in remaining in the state when they're traveling for the pur- a Marshallese woman be-
The charges span about one house slept on mat- they applied, according to pose of adoption, authori- cause he feared the ar-
three years and involve tresses laid on bare floors in Arizona prosecutors. ties said. rangement set up by Pe-
some 75 adoptions. Inves- what one shocked adop- Under a compact between Petersen has faced trou- tersen had violated that
tigators also found eight tive family described as the United States and the bles with his adoption prac- country's law. q
pregnant women from the a "baby mill," according
Marshall Islands in raids of court documents.
his properties outside Phoe- Petersen sold the house
nix, and several more are this spring as complaints
waiting to give birth in Utah, mounted from neighbors
authorities said. in the working-class area
"The commoditization of in suburban Salt Lake City,
children is simply evil," said said new owner Alanna
Utah Attorney General Mabey.
Sean D. Reyes. She was told it had been
The adoptive parents are used as a rental, and since
considered victims along purchasing it she has found
with the birth mothers, and trash like dirty diapers in the
no completed adoptions bushes, she said. The news
will be undone, authorities about how prosecutors say
said. expecting mothers were
Petersen's attorney, Mat- treated there is "horrible,"
thew Long, defended his she said. "It makes me sick
client's actions during a to my stomach."
Tuesday court hearing in In Arkansas, it wasn't un-
Phoenix as "proper business common to find a dozen
practices" and said they Marshallese mothers on the
disagreed with the allega- verge of giving birth in one
tions. house, said Duane Kees,
Republican Arizona Gov. the U.S. attorney for the
Doug Ducey said Petersen western district of Arkansas.
should resign from his elect- "Many of these mothers de-
ed position determining the scribed their ordeal as be-
taxable value for properties ing treated like property,"
in Maricopa County, which Kees said. "Make no mis-
includes Phoenix and its take: this case is the purest
suburbs. form of human trafficking."
Petersen served a two-year Arkansas has one the larg-
mission in the Marshall Is- est concentrations of Mar-
lands for The Church of shallese immigrants in the
Jesus Christ of Latter-day U.S. and the women would
Saints, Reyes said. He was then be flown there or back
later recruited by an inter- to the Marshall Islands after
national adoption agency giving birth, authorities said.
while in law school be- Petersen charged families
cause of his fluency in Mar- $25,000-$40,000 per adop-
shallese, according to a tion and brought about
2013 Phoenix Business Jour- $2.7 million into a bank ac-
nal story. count for adoption fees