PLEA DEAL MADE
Lynwood Jennet — the woman prosecutors allege assisted indicted attorney Paul Petersen in operating an international adoption scheme — agreed to a plea deal on Thursday.
Jennet pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraudulent schemes and artifices, two counts of theft and one count of failure to file a tax return.
The other 45 charges Jennet faced will be dropped.
Jennet is likely to serve two to four years in prison and could be required to pay back nearly $1 million to the state in restitution. She is scheduled to be sentenced in March.
“This is the first step on the road to justice,” Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in an interview on Thursday. “At the end of the day, hardworking Arizonans should known that if someone
tries to rip off Arizona taxpayers will aggressively prosecute cases.”
Jennet was expected to be released from custody Thursday and will remain on house arrest until she is sentenced.
In exchange for the dropped charges, Lynwood is expected to testify against Petersen in his criminal trial.
Petersen is facing felony charges in Arizona, Arkansas and Utah. In Arizona, he is accused of illegally arranging for 28 pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to fly to Arizona, to live in a house he owns and to deliver their babies — paid for by the state’s Medicaid system — before placing them for adoption.
Petersen has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
He also had a court hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court on Thursday. During that hearing, prosecutors from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office said they plan to extend a global plea offer that would settle Petersen’s charges in all three states.
After the hearing, Petersen’s attorney Kurt Altman said he’s had discussions with prosecutors about a plea offer but has not yet received a formal offer.
Asked if Lynwood Jennet’s plea would impact Petersen’s case, Altman said, “That wouldn’t impact us as all.”
Who is Lynwood Jennet?
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Jennet, 46, is a Marshallese woman who has worked for Petersen for six years, according to court documents.
Jennet served as Petersen’s link to Marshallese women, prosecutors allege. Women living in the Marshall Islands would connect with Jennet if they wanted to place their babies for adoption in the U.S.
It is illegal for Marshallese women to travel to the United States for the purpose of adoption.
Jennet would connect them with Petersen, who would pay for them to travel to the U.S., according to court documents.
Once the women arrived in Arizona, Jennet was their translator, their driver and medical contact, according to court documents. She also lived with them during their pregnancies in a house in Mesa that Petersen owned.
Jennet is accused of assisting the pregnant women in fraudulently applying for Medicaid benefits and authoring affidavits to the Arizona Department of Economic Security stating that they lived with her, according to court documents.
This helped them establish Arizona residency so they could receive medical benefits, according to court documents.
Jennet was arrested in October as a co-defendant in the charges Petersen faces in Arizona.
Unable to post bond, she’s remained in custody since Oct. 8. Associates paid Petersen’s combined $350,000 bond from the three states, and he was released from jail in late October.
In September, Jennet was indicted on 17 other counts of conspiracy, fraudulent
In addition to his adoption practice, Petersen is also the elected county assessor.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors suspended Petersen for 120 days in October.
Petersen has appealed his suspension and is awaiting a decision by the board on his fate.
The Board of Supervisors is the central governing body for the county, but it typically cannot remove other elected officials, like Petersen, from office.
However, state law does give the board authority to suspend the assessor for up to 120 days for “neglect of duty.” The supervisors said they believe Petersen’s absence from office during his three-week incarceration qualifies as neglect of duty.
The board met in a closed-door executive session meeting on Thursday to discuss Petersen’s suspension.
County spokesman Fields Moseley said the board has not yet received a final investigative report on Petersen’s work conduct and won’t make a final decision until it does.