Print this article A former Arizona county official who pleaded guilty last year to running an adoption fraud scheme must report to prison on Thursday to serve the first of three sentences in a prison near El Paso, Texas. Paul Petersen, an adoption attorney and former Republican Maricopa County assessor, was indicted in October 2019 for running an adoption scheme across Arkansas, Arizona, and Utah, in which he illegally brought pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to the United States to give birth. He then charged "significant sums of money" to act as a legal facilitator of the adoptions, according to 5 News.