How Paul Petersen Could Be Removed As County Assessor — And How He Might Go Back To Work
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STEVE GOLDSTEIN: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted on Friday to uphold the suspension of County Assessor Paul Petersen, who's been accused of running an illegal adoption ring involving women from the Marshall Islands. The supervisors suspended Petersen in October after he was arrested and they're standing by that decision despite an appeal from Petersen and signs that he may take this fight to court. Jessica Boehm has been covering the case for the Arizona Republic and is with me now. Jessica, good morning.
JESSICA BOEHM: Good morning.
GOLDSTEIN: So the supervisors took several weeks to reach this decision. Was there a really much of a debate, because they were being asked to reconsider their own previous vote?
BOEHM: There clearly was not a consensus from the start, or at least they wanted to take their time and make sure that they weren't setting themselves up for a horrible legal failure. I think Paul Petersen's attorney definitely made it clear that their intention was to take this to court if the supervisors did not change their minds. And so I think they did not take that lightly and realized that might be setting up a pricey legal battle. But at the end of the day, they did stick by what they had ultimately decided in October.
GOLDSTEIN: One of Petersen's attorneys, Kory Langhofer, has been pretty outspoken. What are they arguing exactly? Why do they believe the suspension was improper?
BOEHM: They believe that basically the supervisors are making this decision because of the criminal allegations, which have not been — you know, you are innocent until proven guilty. And so that's their big argument, is that they're taking these steps because of the criminal allegations and not because of his alleged neglect of duty, which is how they're phrasing it, saying, "When you were incarcerated for 20 days, you neglected your duty as an assessor." And that's kind of an interesting constitutional question, because that's not very well laid out in law. What is the duty of an elected assessor? I mean, I guess we might find out if this goes to court.
GOLDSTEIN: And of course, you have there's been some rabble rousing as to whether we actually need a county assessor if someone can be in jail and do the job as it is, right?
BOEHM: Exactly.
GOLDSTEIN: So in addition to upholding Petersen's suspension, the board also is asking Maricopa County Attorney, Alister Adel's office to seek his removal from office. How could that proceed?
BOEHM: Yeah. So this is how I understand that it could proceed, and this is obviously going into a little bit of uncharted territory. But my understanding is that if she decides to assemble — if she decides that there is possible improper conduct in office, she can assemble a grand jury and have that go before them. And then they would ultimately be the one who would charge him with that, so to speak. And then that would go to basically like like a court trial. And a jury would either find that he had improper conduct while in office. And if so, then his punishment would be removal from office.
GOLDSTEIN: Has County Attorney Adel indicated as to whether she'd wade into this? Is she required to wade into this, frankly?
BOEHM: I do not believe that she is required to. But she did say that she is basically weighing it at this point. The supervisors made that decision on Friday. So I don't know. I guess we'll see in the next couple of weeks whether she decides to take that next step. It's a tricky legal situation. And like I said, not something we see every day. So it'll be really interesting to those of us who find this kind of thing interesting.
GOLDSTEIN: Well, right. And the two of us obviously do. So the the next couple of weeks you mentioned, the clock is sort of ticking because Petersen could just return to his office at some point if this isn't settled. Is that right?
BOEHM: Right. So the board of supervisors only has constitutional power to suspend the assessor for 120 days. We've already passed the 60-day mark here. So, you know, the clock is ticking. I think, if my calculations are correct, it's the end of February that he could be back. So, yeah, if the county attorney doesn't take those next steps, and if a jury doesn't rule that he had improper behavior, then, yeah, he could be back and working.
GOLDSTEIN: Wow. That should be interesting to watch. Jessica Boehm, who covers Maricopa County among many other things, for the Arizona Republic. Jessica, thank you.
BOEHM: Thank you.
