A supposed leader of the Arizona Mexican Mafia convicted of pandemic employment fraud has also admitted to being involved in multiple previously unsolved 1990s homicides.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office said Tuesday that Paul Eppinger confessed to playing a role in the deaths of five people. His confessions were given during the course of a large-scale fraud investigation, to which Eppinger also pleaded guilty.
The investigation revealed that Arizona inmates and “associates” submitted false claims for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in “significant financial losses to the state and federal government.”
Eppinger, who is already serving a life sentence in federal prison, received an additional 25-year sentence for each of the homicide cases.
Court documents name the first-degree murder victims as Thomas L. James, Benjamin Hernandez, Carol Romero, David Gano, and Raul Sanchez, who were all killed in March, May, and June of 1999.
Each murder was gang-related, the AG’s office says, and Eppinger provided “detailed confessions” of his involvement.
“Eppinger's admissions have provided crucial breakthroughs, allowing law enforcement to close these cases and bring a measure of justice to the victims' families after decades,” the AG’s office said in a press release.
