The elected county assessor of Arizona’s Maricopa County, was arrested Tuesday in California and charged with 11 felonies related to an alleged illegal adoption scheme, according to the Utah Attorney General’s Office.
The charges against Paul Petersen — an adoption lawyer licensed in Utah and Arizona — include communications fraud, human smuggling and sale of a child.
The Attorney General’s Office alleges that over the last three years, Petersen recruited more than 40 pregnant women from the Marshall Islands and transported them to Utah, where they were paid to give up their children for adoption in the United States.