A former Peace Corps employee in Africa who avoided prosecution after killing a mother of three in a car crash in 2019 is again the subject of a federal watchdog’s inquiry into whether he had a history of hiring sex workers overseas.
USA TODAY confirmed that a Peace Corps Office of Inspector General investigator interviewed at least six people about their knowledge of John Peterson, 67, the agency’s former director of management and operations in Tanzania. The investigator traveled to Dar es Salaam and interviewed at least two of Peterson’s former colleagues.
The reason for the renewed interest and scope of the inquiry is unclear. But it comes after USA TODAY in December exposed details of a chaotic episode in which Peterson's vehicle plowed into and killed Rabia Issa, 47, as she set up a roadside food stand. The agency said the crash happened after Peterson had been drinking at a bar and brought a sex worker to his home.
Several people who have spoken to the investigator in recent months told USA TODAY that they were asked, among other things, whether Peterson had a history of hiring sex workers. A former Peace Corps Tanzania official wrote in a message shared with former volunteers in March that the inspector general was looking into “illegal or inappropriate activities.” The official provided the name and contact information of the investigator and encouraged those with firsthand knowledge to reach out.
“They are exploring angles for prosecution in the US,” he wrote in the message, which was posted by a former volunteer on Facebook.
Peterson, a former Peace Corps volunteer who records show worked for the agency in Togo and South Africa in the 1990s and was rehired in Tanzania in 2017, declined an interview request through his lawyer, Mark Zaid.
"We are unaware of any criminal investigation that is underway and have reached out to the Inspector General's Office,” Zaid said in an email.
The inspector general is an internal watchdog for the Peace Corps, a federal agency that sends volunteers to often remote locations around the world with the mission of promoting “world peace and friendship.” The office investigated Peterson for the incident on Aug. 24, 2019, that killed Issa. According to a brief summary of the findings provided to Congress last year, the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute Peterson, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
Acting Peace Corps Inspector General Joaquin Ferrao, through a spokeswoman, declined an interview request and to describe the scope of that inquiry. The summary sent to Congress focused largely on Peterson’s actions but cast little scrutiny on the agency’s response – including officials’ decisions to evacuate Peterson from Tanzania within hours of the crash, keep him on payroll and allow him to resign after 18 months. Ferrao would not answer questions about why the office is looking into Peterson again.
“We are unable to confirm or deny the existence of ongoing investigations due to law enforcement and privacy concerns,” Yaneth Pena, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, said in an email.
The office is casting a wider net this time around and speaking with several people who were not previously interviewed, USA TODAY found.
According to agency records received through a Freedom of Information Act Request and interviews with sources familiar with the crash and its aftermath, Peterson had been drinking at a bar, picked up a sex worker in his diplomatic-plated vehicle and brought her back to his government-leased home. Driving the woman back to the area where he had picked her up, Peterson struck a bystander and fled when onlookers began pelting his vehicle with rocks.
On a sharp turn, he slammed into and killed Issa. Peterson kept driving, and the sex worker – who was in the passenger seat throughout the ordeal – leaped from the vehicle. Peterson continued driving until he hit a pole. He was taken to a police station, where he refused a breathalyzer and was released to receive medical attention, according to the inspector general. Staff from the Peace Corps and the U.S. Embassy arranged for Peterson to be medically evacuated from the country that day. Tanzanian authorities were unable to pursue criminal charges against Peterson first, according to the inspector general.
In the USA, the Peace Corps placed Peterson on administrative leave. He continued to collect a paycheck while under investigation. The Peace Corps revoked his security clearance, though an agency spokeswoman would not say when that happened. Records show Peterson resigned in February 2021, 18 months after killing Issa.
Ramat Ole Saibull, a former Peace Corps employee in Tanzania who retired in August, told USA TODAY he was contacted by the inspector general’s office about a month ago and met with an investigator and a security official from the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania for nearly an hour in the lobby of a hotel in Dar es Salaam. Saibull said they asked him if he had any knowledge of Peterson hiring sex workers. He told them he did not and recommended they speak to the guards who worked at Peterson’s residence in Dar es Salaam.
“They are the best people to know exactly what kind of people he was welcoming into his house,” Saibull told USA TODAY.
Saibull, who worked for the Peace Corps for 12 years, said he and others in the office heard at the time of the incident that Peterson was in a car crash and that a woman died, but little else. He said he learned more about what happened, including the name of the woman Peterson killed, only after USA TODAY reported on the incident in December.
“John was a very good administrator,” Saibull said. “It was a surprise for many people to know that has happened. Because nobody knows his life after work.”
Peace Corps volunteers and staff are required to follow conduct rules outlined in agency handbooks and executive branch ethics policies, including a prohibition on hiring commercial sex workers. They are subject to their host nation’s laws and have no right to diplomatic immunity, an agreement under which certain diplomats and their families are protected against prosecution in foreign countries. Americans can be charged in the USA for crimes committed abroad under a limited number of laws, such as when the person is a member of the military, when a criminal act takes place on property owned by the U.S. government or when the case involves sexual exploitation of a minor.
It is rare but not unheard of for the inspector general to revisit an old case, according to Geoffrey Johnson, a former Peace Corps assistant inspector general for investigations who left the office in 2011. Johnson said that can happen when new information comes to light or when someone outside the office raises questions about the adequacy of the first probe.
“If the director of the Peace Corps or someone in Congress expressed interest in it and thought we did an incomplete job, those would be the circumstances,” Johnson said.
Henry Mulzac, a former senior special agent who worked for the office from 2002 to 2007 and handled cold cases involving murdered volunteers, said picking up an old case can be a difficult task, especially when many years have passed. Regarding the events in Tanzania, he wondered whether potential evidence such as Peterson’s car or computer would still be available to investigators.
He said the inspector general might be looking at whether any other Peace Corps employees should be disciplined for how they handled the aftermath of the incident.
“You start to think about the stones you left unturned. And what’s harder is you have to go out and find those stones to overturn them,” Mulzac said. “And they may or may not be there.”
USA TODAY’s reporting last year sparked widespread outrage, including from former Peace Corps volunteers who said they felt ashamed of their service and compelled to support Issa’s family. A fundraising effort initiated by a former volunteer has raised more than $20,000. A union official representing Peace Corps employees called for the leaders who helped Peterson leave Tanzania to “be named, shamed and then fired.”
Officials at the State Department declined to provide any information about the incident, even though the agency has been intimately involved in responding to Peterson’s actions. Department personnel helped arrange for Peterson to be evacuated within hours of Issa’s death, investigated the incident alongside the Peace Corps inspector general and interviewed at least one former Peace Corps employee recently in Tanzania, USA TODAY found.
A State Department spokesman repeatedly deferred questions to the Peace Corps and cited privacy concerns. The agency, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, said it had no records related to Peterson’s evacuation. USA TODAY appealed the response, and the agency agreed to conduct an additional search for relevant records.
USA TODAY requested records from the Peace Corps covering Peterson's employment and fallout from the crash in 2019. The agency released a limited view, but hundreds of other documents and emails are still under review for release.
Peace Corps CEO Carol Spahn, who declined repeated interview requests, responded in January to growing backlash by outlining a series of next steps, including exploring legislative and policy changes “to address some of the limitations the Peace Corps faced in this matter.”
Asked for an update on those efforts, spokeswoman Karla Alvarado-Chavez said in an email that the agency “continues to focus on strengthening and improving Agency operations as we return Volunteers to overseas service” and would provide an update on priorities in the coming weeks. In March, volunteers deployed to Zambia and the Dominican Republic, the first to serve since all members were evacuated at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Spahn, whom President Joe Biden nominated last month to lead the agency, told employees at a town hall in January that there were calls for the agency to extradite Peterson to Tanzania to face possible charges but that doing so is not within the agency’s power.
“If criminal charges are filed in Tanzania, we will happily and fully cooperate with the State Department and Department of Justice,” she said, according to prepared remarks shared by the agency. “The more I have wrestled with all of this, the clearer it becomes that – despite our intense desire to do so – we cannot change the past. But we can and must be intentional as we move forward.”
Tricia L. Nadolny and Nick Penzenstadler are reporters for USA TODAY. Tricia can be reached at tnadolny@usatoday.com or on Twitter at @TriciaNadolny. Nick can be reached at npenz@usatoday.com or @npenzenstadler, or on Signal at 720-507-5273.
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