Concerns raised on state adoption rules

Some view indicted lawyer’s case as example of system’s long-standing flaws

FAYETTEVILLE — Gaps in state law made Arkansas a center for suspicious adoptions long before an Arizona adoption lawyer was indicted here, advocates for birth parents and adoptive parents say.

Those advocates include state court judges whose calls for reform began at least four years before the 19-count criminal indictment.

Paul D. Petersen, 44, of

Mesa, Ariz., is set to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court. Kurt

M. Altman, a lawyer from Scottsdale,

Ariz., said Friday his client’s case would be tried in the courts based on evidence and not through news outlets. Altman declined further comment.

Petersen also faces adoption-related state charges in Arizona and Utah.

“Make no mistake. This case is the purest form of human trafficking,” said Duane “Dak” Kees, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, in a news conference Oct. 9 when the indictment was announced.

Petersen’s law firm enticed pregnant Marshall Islanders close to delivery to give up their children for adoption, paid airfare to bring them to the United States for that purpose and then gave them airfare home, according to the indictment. The acts were in violation of a clause in a treaty with the islands’ government forbidding travel to the United States for adoption purposes, according to the indictment.

About half of the 19 birth mothers caught up in the Petersen case in Arkansas are local residents, said Michaela Montie, executive director of Shared Beginnings. Montie, an adoptive parent of three, founded the adoption advocacy group one year ago to help fill what she saw as gaps in the law and other protections for birth parents in Arkansas.

A birth mother can live in Arkansas for as little as four months to establish herself as a legal resident. Only a legal resident can have her baby approved for adoption by an Arkansas court, Montie said. This compares to at least six months’ residency in most other states, she said.

Licensed adoption agencies have detailed bookkeeping requirements that private adoption lawyers don’t have to follow in Arkansas. The lawyers are supposed to work out a budget for the mother’s care, with the expenses paid by the adoptive parents. In practice, Montie said, that can be as simple as estimating costs and giving the total to the birth mother in cash.

The adoptive parents in the cases involved in the federal indictment paid the expectant mothers’ housing and food expenses, which Petersen’s firm deliberately inflated, according to the indictment. For instance, adoptive parents paid lodging expenses for the mothers when they were staying in the family home of Maki Takehisa, 39, Petersen’s indicted co-conspirator.

Takehisa, of 2006 Cardinal Drive in Springdale, is charged with one count each of money laundering and mail fraud. Takehisa also was charged earlier this year with aiding and abetting alien smuggling, a violation of the Compact of Free Association, the treaty between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands.

There are no requirements for counseling the birth mother for grief or loss and no required family planning support or social services, Montie said. Trying to fill that particular gap is a priority for her nonprofit group, she said.

Shared Beginnings became the lead advocate for Petersen’s 19 birth mothers during an Oct. 11 hearing in Washington County Circuit Court. Andrea McCurdy, legal counsel for Shared Beginnings, was appointed as the attorney ad litem for those women. The cases were taken away from Petersen’s firm.

At last count, 14 of the 19 are receiving some form of assistance through Shared Beginnings, Montie said Friday. Some are approaching delivery and some recently gave birth, she said.

All are doing well considering the circumstances since they were largely dependent on Petersen’s firm for housing, health care and basic necessities, she said.

Volunteers throughout Northwest Arkansas answered calls for assistance, Montie said. Community Clinic, a nonprofit organization, quickly enrolled the birth mothers in state Medicaid and started providing prenatal and other medical care, she said.

The Hark organization, an affiliate of the Endeavor Foundation in Springdale, was invaluable in finding housing for the birth mothers, she said. Many were living in houses provided by Petersen or his law firm’s associates.

Other volunteers provided help from counseling to infant car seats. Among the donations are accumulated airline flight miles so some of the mothers will be able to return to the Marshall Islands, where at least one has children who are in a family member’s care.

The adoptive parents who were expecting a child from these mothers have also been very supportive and concerned despite the uncertainty of whether the adoptions will occur, Montie said.

Those adoptive parents appear to have been unaware of any illegality in the process, she said.

Petersen’s scheme started in 2014 and possibly earlier, according to the indictment.

The majority of adoptions approved in Washington County are for Marshallese children, court officials say. The high rate of Marshallese adoptions in Northwest Arkansas drew concern from circuit judges in the region for years, Judge Doug Martin said last year.

“I didn’t have a single Marshallese adoption” in 2009-10, Martin said in 2015. “I spent two years working in Little Rock, and when I returned in 2013, all of a sudden about 90 percent of those adoptions were Marshallese.

“Nine out of 10 adoptions I do are for a Marshallese child,” Martin said at the time.

The large number of Marshallese women giving up their children for adoption caused widespread concern among the area’s legal, medical and advocacy communities in Northwest Arkansas as early as 2015. They worried some of the women were signing documents in a language they didn’t understand and may not know they have no rights to the child once the baby is adopted.

In March, Marshall Islands officials charged a Springdale man, Justin Aine, with human trafficking, according to the Marshall Islands Journal. Kees has said Aine’s case and Petersen’s are linked, but declined to comment on how or whether the Marshallese government will file charges against Petersen.

Aine, 46, was charged with one count each of trafficking in person, unlawful solicitation and monetary inducement, according to a report in the Journal.

Petersen