Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Paul Petersen in 2019.

The former Maricopa County assessor charged in an illegal adoption scheme by the U.S. government has now been sentenced to an additional five years in state prison.

The state Attorney General’s Office says Paul Petersen will serve an additional five years for an adoption scheme that cost Arizona taxpayers.

Petersen ran an adoption practice that brought pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to the US to give birth.

Prosecutors said he charged upwards of $35,000 to adoptive parents. Petersen was already sentenced to six years by a federal judge. And he faces a separate human trafficking case in Utah.