A former Arizona politician was sentenced to six years in federal detention in Arkansas for smuggling pregnant women into the United States as part of an extensive illegal adoption conspiracy, USA Today reported Wednesday.
Prosecutors described Paul Petersen's illicit venture as a "get-rich-quick scheme... concealed behind the shiny veneer of a humanitarian operation." He was also ordered to pay $100,000 in fines.
Petersen, a former Maricopa County Assessor, admitted running an adoption enterprise in three states and helped to bankroll his extravagant lifestyle.
The scheme involved paying expectant mothers from the Marshall Islands to have babies in America and give them up to adoptive parents in exchange for thousands of dollars.
Citizens from the Pacific island have been banned from traveling to the U.S. for adoption purposes since 2003 and prosecutors said Petersen's operations lasted three years. A Republican, Petersen also worked as an adoption attorney.
During the sentencing hearing, Petersen denied any knowledge that his staff in the adoption scam had threatened the women by taking away their passports if they tried to back out of the deal.
Appearing via virtual conference, Petersen told the court that his misdeeds weren't indicative of who he is as a person and apologized to any birth mothers who felt insulted or harmed by his treatment of them. "I take full responsibility for my lack of oversight," he added.
Petersen got involved in the illegal adoptions in 1998 while he worked as a missionary in the islands through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reports say.
According to U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks, the conduct in which Petersen engaged in violates public morals. "We don't sell babies. That's the policy of the United States of America," USA Today disclosed.
Federal prosecutors said the former assessor defrauded state courts, violated an international adoption law, and capitalized on unsuspecting mothers and adoptive families for his own gains.
Petersen, who was arrested in 2019 on charges in connection to human smuggling and Medicare fraud, could face a longer time in jail on state charges after he completes his federal sentence.
