Arizona Politician Charged With Human Trafficking
tulc( )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 United States, where they were crammed into houses to wait to give birth, sometimes with little to no prenatal care, prosecutors say.
Paul Petersen, the Republican assessor of Maricopa County, Arizona, home to Phoenix, was charged in Utah, Arizona and Arkansas with counts including human smuggling, sale of a child, fraud, forgery and conspiracy to commit money laundering