Ex-Arizona politician sentenced to 6 years in Arkansas for illegal adoption scheme
PHOENIX — A former Arizona politician who admitted running an illegal adoption scheme in three states involving women from the Marshall Islands was sentenced in Arkansas to six years in federal prison. It was the first of three punishments he'll face for arranging adoptions prohibited by an international compact.
Paul Petersen, a Republican who served as metro Phoenix's assessor for six years and also worked as an adoption attorney, illegally paid women from the Pacific island nation to come to the U.S. to give up their babies in at least 70 adoptions cases in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas, prosecutors said.
Marshall Islands citizens have been prohibited from traveling to the U.S. for adoption purposes since 2003 and prosecutors said Petersen's scheme lasted three years.
Judge Timothy Brooks, who imposed the sentence from Fayetteville, Arkansas, said Petersen abused his position as an attorney by misleading or instructing others to lie to courts in adoptions that wouldn't have been approved had the truth been told to them.
Read more: https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/arkansas/story/2020/dec/02/ex-arizona-politician-sentenced-6-years-arkansas-illegal-adoption-scheme/851108/