Photo This file photo shows then-Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen, right, and his attorney, Kurt Altman, as they leave a court hearing in Phoenix on
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A woman who assisted former Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen in operating an international adoption scheme was sentenced to two years in state prison.
Lynwood Jennet, 47, a native of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, had worked for Petersen for six years.
Jennet helped Petersen coordinate adoptions from the Marshall Islands to the United States. Once the women arrived in Arizona, Jennet was their translator, their driver as well as their medical contact, according to court documents. She also lived with them during their pregnancies in a house in Mesa owned by Petersen.
While Petersen charged each adoptive family $35,000 or more, Jennet provided false information to Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state s Medicaid program for low-income residents. to pay for the births with tax dollars, according to court documents.
Jennet was sentenced to two years in prison and order to pay:
$28,001.97 to AHCCCS
$6,591.00 to the Arizona Department of Revenue (Failure to file Tax Return – Class 5 Felony)
In April 2021, Paul Petersen was sentenced to five years in state prison for running the fraudulent adoption scheme. Petersen’s sentence will run consecutive to his federal sentence of six years. Arizona’s sentencing agreements were not part of a global settlement.
According to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Jennet helped Petersen arrange adoptions from the Marshall Islands. Even though Petersen charged families around $35,000 per adoption to cover medical expenses, Jennet helped the birthmothers apply for medical benefits through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) to pay for their births with tax dollars. The birthmothers should not have qualified for AHCCCS benefits because they were not Arizona residents. Between November 2015 and May 2019, AHCCCS paid for at leas
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