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"Authorities believe Paul Peterson, an adoption lawyer and Maricopa County Assessor was the head of a smuggling ring that allegedly recruited Marshallese women "and offered a significant amount of money to place their babies for adoption in Utah," state Attorney General Sean Reyes told reporters Wednesday.

Peterson is charged with 11 second and third-degree felonies in Utah, including human smuggling, sale of a child, communications fraud and pattern of unlawful activity, Reyes said.

"The commercialization of children is illegal and the commoditization of children is simply evil," Reyes said.

Reyes said his office's investigation began after investigators got a call to a human-trafficking tip line in October 2017. Staff at several hospitals in the Salt Lake City area would eventually report an "influx" of women from the Marshall Islands giving birth and putting their babies up for adoption, often accompanied by the same woman.

In Arizona, Peterson was indicted on 32 charges including theft, fraud and forgery. Prosecutors there say the scheme defrauded Arizona's Medicaid system of $800,000 because the women had no intention of remaining in the state when they applied for benefits.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) said it received a tip in December of 2018 from a person who had been interested in adopting through Peterson's firm but became suspicious of his practices, court documents state.

Prosecutors say Petersen used associates in the Marshall Islands, where he had served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to recruit pregnant women by offering many of them $10,000 each to give up their babies for adoption. Petersen would pay for the women to travel to the U.S. days or months before giving birth and live in a home that he owned until delivering the baby, according to the court records.

Petersen charged families $25,000-$40,000 per adoption and brought about $2.7 million into a bank account for adoption fees in less than two years, according to court documents.

Under a compact between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Marshallese citizens can enter the U.S. and work without a visa, unless they're traveling for the purpose of adoption, authorities said.

Separately, federal prosecutors in Arkansas announced that Peterson had been arrested Wednesday and unsealed an indictment charging him with crimes including conspiracy, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety, Homeland Security Investigations and the Utah Attorney General's Office were involved in the arrest, officials said.

Authorities in all three states said that the birth mothers and the adoptive families did not commit any crimes and would not be facing charges. No completed adoptions will be undone because authorities do not believe the women were misled into believing their children might be returned at some point."

L I N K !!

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A former Arizona politician could serve up to 15 years in prison for operating an illegal adoption scheme involving women from the Marshall Islands after he was given his third sentence Wednesday in Utah.

Paul Petersen had already been ordered to serve 11 years in prison in Arizona and Arkansas.

Utah Judge Linda M. Jones sentenced him to 1-15 years under Utah's judicial rules that set a sentencing range and leave it up to the parole board to decide how long a person actually serves. She said the Utah sentence will run concurrently with the other prison time, which means Petersen could be done with his Utah prison time by the time he completes his other sentences or have up to four more years.
[....]
Petersen pleaded guilty last year to three counts of human smuggling and one count of communications fraud in Utah.

In March, he was ordered to serve five years for defrauding Arizona’s Medicaid system in a scam to get taxpayer-funded health coverage for the birth mothers, even though he knew they didn’t live in the state. His five-year Arizona punishment is to be served after he completes his six-year federal sentence for conspiring to smuggle people in Arkansas.
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