Paul Petersen.

About Paul Petersen

Paul Petersen is a former public official in Arizona who was convicted of smuggling pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to at least three different states, as part of an adoption scheme. He pled guilty to charges of human smuggling, communication fraud, fraud and other charges in June 2020 and was sentenced to six years in prison in an Arkansas federal case in December 2020. His actions violated a compact between the United States and the Marshall Islands, which bans Marshallese people from traveling to the United States for adoptions unless they have a specific visa.