< Here's the almost 'picture-perfect' portrayal usually put out there for public consumption by politicians or officials here in Mesa and Maricopa County - everything is happy, Happy husband with a good job, happy wife, two or more (3,4,5,6,7+) happy children, happy sun-dappled day with a golden glow all over. Life is good. Everything is wonderful - just looks great to create that clear veneer of credibility. "Mesa is a great place to raise a family and to live, work and play".Happy days are here again! What more could anyone want? Apparently Paul Petersen, elected as the Maricopa County Assessor, wanted more than his public day job - one of the most coveted positions responsible for over $500M in personal property and real estate valuations in a county that is no stranger to land fraud.
Petersen didn't get snagged for anything in that ripe field of schemes that's toppled so many politicians here, at least not yet. Most of the time it's somehow 'over-looked', conveniently with eyes cast-aside, deniable condoned or generally accepted as just the way we do business. No questions asked. Everybody gets their cut one way or another. __________________________________________________________________________
< Here's just one screen-grab flashed all over local, national and international news scoops showing a raid on his private $600,000 Mesa home - and here's the public fall-out with some background thrown in where it all started. . . and then there's the question almost all the time, Why is the almost constant connection here in Mesa and Maricopa County in Arizona and the state of Utah?  |
| Always that smile! |
. . Petersen served a two-year mission in the Marshall Islands for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes eyes 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.
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.
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| Always that smile! |
< Take a look at the cash value involved in his duties as public official;: $508 B
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...but let's get back to what's grabbing all the public's attention when other things don't get looked at, at least for what's investigated now in the commission of crimes at the present time.
The adoptive parents are considered victims along with the birth mothers, and no completed adoptions will be undone, authorities said
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. . .
Petersen’s Mesa, Arizona, home is worth more than $600,000 and located in an affluent, gated community.
Arizona GOP Official Charged In Baby-Selling Case
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'He Was Selling Children': Red Flags Raised Years Ago
About Alleged Adoption Scammer
Paul Petersen raised eyebrows over a decade ago when he allegedly arranged for a pregnant woman from the Marshall Islands to give birth in the U.S.
Now some are questioning why it took more than a decade to bring legal action against the accused human trafficker. .
A Scottsdale lawyer called the delay in legal action “shady.”
“It’s amazing to me that all these adoptions went through over the years,” Fisher said. 
He was basically smuggling humans, and he was selling children.”
It’s unclear why authorities didn’t investigate Petersen then.
Petersen and his co-defendant Lynwood Jennet are also accused of fraudulently using state-funded healthcare to pay for the women’s delivery costs and medical expenses, which prosecutors said totaled nearly $1 million.
