Current Events > Arizona Politician Charged in Human Trafficking Adoption Scheme

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://time.com/5696824/arizona-human-smuggling-adoption-fraud/?

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 Arizonas 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.

The commoditization of children is simply evil, said Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes.

The adoptive parents are considered victims along with the birth mothers, and no completed adoptions will be undone, authorities said.

Petersens attorney, Matthew Long, defended his clients actions during a Tuesday court hearing in Phoenix as proper business practices and said they disagreed with the allegations.

Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said Petersen should resign from his elected position determining the taxable value for properties in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs.

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.

Petersen sold the house this spring as complaints mounted from neighbors in the working-class area in suburban Salt Lake City, said new owner Alanna Mabey.

She was told it had been used as a rental, and since purchasing it she has found trash like dirty diapers in the bushes, she said. The news about how prosecutors say expecting mothers were treated there is horrible, she said. It makes me sick to my stomach.

In Arkansas, it wasnt uncommon to find a dozen Marshallese mothers on the verge of giving birth in one house, said Duane Kees, the U.S. attorney for the western district of Arkansas.

Many of these mothers described their ordeal as being treated like property, Kees said. Make no mistake: this case is the purest form of human trafficking.

Arkansas has one the largest concentrations of Marshallese immigrants in the U.S. and the women would then be flown there or back to the Marshall Islands after giving birth, authorities said.

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Oh...the county where I move next fall. Lovely...

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Antifar posted...

Republican

*shocked Pikachu*

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Doom_Art posted...

Antifar posted...

Republican

*shocked Pikachu*

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Republicans

Fucking sicken me
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Hanky_Bannister posted...

Republicans

Fucking sicken me

the evil is out in the open under Trump this is how they have always been
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imagine reading this and the first thing that comes to mind is "republican"
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Came in expecting a Republican, got a Republican.
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It sickens me the first thing some people take away from this is his political party
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konokonohamaru posted...

imagine reading this and the first thing that comes to mind is "republican"

Kazi1212 posted...

It sickens me the first thing some people take away from this is his political party

Weird how this upsets people who constantly defend horrible things republicans do
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konokonohamaru posted...

imagine reading this and the first thing that comes to mind is "republican"

That says more about the Republican Party than it does about the people reading the story
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Kazi1212 posted...

It sickens me the first thing some people take away from this is his political party

republicans should stop doing vile shit tbh
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Pretty forcing people to work for your baby mill isnt following proper business practices, but maybe their books were super balanced and they were strictly following the break procedures or something.
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Politicians love doing crimes
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I really want to know why the adopting families went through this method, given how they're called victims of this crime. Did they know what was going on?

And of all underhanded means to make money, why would you start a baby mill? Are we missing a more devious part of the story?
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https://www..imdb.com/title/tt0093822/

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Alex Jones was right

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how much tho

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I expected a fake liberal (especially after that livestream of human trafficking by one), but only got some old profiteering politician from the GOP. Regardless, jail is only thing this politician will be looking forward to.
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Even though you would never admit it, all y'all Trumpeters knew it would be a Republican before clicking.
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