Republican Politician charged in human trafficking adoption scheme

[tenderfoot]

An Arizona elected official ran a human smuggling scheme that promised pregnant women thousands of dollars to lure them from a Pacific Island nation to the U.S., where they were crammed into houses to wait to give birth, sometimes with little to no prenatal care, prosecutors allege.

Paul Petersen, the Republican assessor of Arizona's most populous county, was charged in Utah, Arizona and Arkansas with counts including human smuggling, sale of a child, fraud, forgery and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The charges span about three years and involve some 75 adoptions. Investigators also found eight pregnant women from the Marshall Islands in raids of his properties outside Phoenix, and several more are waiting to give birth in Utah, authorities said.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

Petersen served a two-year mission in the Marshall Islands for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Reyes said. He was later recruited by an international adoption agency while in law school because of his fluency in Marshallese, according to a 2013 Phoenix Business Journal story.

Prosecutors say Petersen used associates there 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.

The expecting mothers were often crowded in the homes, with Marshallese women Petersen employed helping with things like translation, transportation, legal documents and applications for Medicaid benefits, prosecutors said.

Women got little to no prenatal care in Utah, and in one house slept on mattresses laid on bare floors in what one shocked adoptive family described as a "baby mill," according court documents.

more: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/arizona-official-charged-marshall-islands-adoption-scheme-66170106

[Bayard]

1. Figures

Rethuglican family values at work again.

[MagickMuffin]

2. one shocked adoptive family described as a "baby mill,"

That sounds awful. Those poor women were treated like dogs breeders treat their dogs.

LOCK HIM UP along with his attorney for this: "proper business practices" and said they disagreed with the allegations.

How does he think it is "proper" to crowd women into sleeping on the floors while pregnant. Of course they wouldn't understand the discomfort women go through while carrying. It can be stressful enough under normal conditions, but treating them like dogs is outrageous.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Cheating Medicare too

Cheating Medicare too

[lpbk2713]

4. Hooda guessed it was a family values guy?