PHOENIX (AP) — An elected official in Arizona was suspended Monday after he was charged with running a human smuggling scheme that brought pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to the U.S. to give birth and then paid them to give up their children for adoption. Leaders in Arizona’s most […]
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah judge has reduced the bail for an Arizona county elected official charged in an alleged human smuggling scheme involving pregnant women. The Deseret News reports that a district judge Friday reduced Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen’s bail to $150,000 from $3 million. Charges against Petersen […]
PHOENIX (AP) — A lawyer for an Arizona elected official charged in three states with facilitating an illegal international adoption scheme said Tuesday prosecutors have miscast his client as a human smuggler. Attorney Matt Long said Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen cares deeply for the mothers from the Marshall Islands […]
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona elected official facing human smuggling charges over an adoption scheme is in federal custody. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Phoenix said Friday that County Assessor Paul Petersen was no longer in their jail. It was not immediately known where he was transferred. Petersen is […]
PHOENIX (AP) — The Latest on an Arizona county official accused of human smuggling in an adoption fraud scheme (all times local): 1:38 p.m. Officials in three states say they will not try to undo or interfere with dozens of adoptions done as part of a human smuggling scheme that […]
