PHOENIX (AP) – The assessor of Arizona’s most populous county has been accused of human smuggling in an adoption fraud scheme that brought dozens of pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to the U.S. to give up their children for adoption, court records show.
Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen has been charged with human smuggling, sale of a child and communications fraud in Utah, and with fraud, conspiracy, theft and forgery in Arizona.
“Petersen’s illegal adoption scheme exploited highly vulnerable groups in two countries – the birth mothers and families in the Marshall Islands and the adoptive parents here in Utah,” Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes said in a statement.
The charges span about three years and involve nearly 70 adoptions in Utah and Arizona of babies. Additional adoptions are under investigation in Arkansas, authorities said.
Petersen’s attorney, Matthew Long, defended his client’s actions during a Tuesday court hearing in Phoenix as “proper business practices” and said they disagreed with the allegations.