State sent jobless aid to Peterson, other killers

California’s system for paying unemployment benefits is so dysfunctional that the state approved more than $140 million for at least 35,000 prisoners, prosecutors said Tuesday, detailing a scheme that resulted in payouts in the names of well-known convicted murderers like Scott Peterson and Cary Stayner.

From March to August, California has put $140 million on debit cards and mailed them to addresses associated with the inmates, according to Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert. At least 158 claims were approved for 133 death-row inmates, resulting in more than $420,000 in benefits.

The list includes Peterson, who was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing his pregnant wife following a trial that riveted the nation. Others are Stayner, convicted of killing four people in Yosemite National Park in 1999; Susan Eubanks, a San Diego woman convicted of shooting her four sons to death in 1997; Isauro Aguirre, who was sentenced to death for the 2013 murder of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez in Los Angeles; and Wesley Shermantine, part of the duo dubbed the “Speed Freak Killers” for their meth-induced killing rampage in the 1980s and ’90s.

Prosecutors said they learned of the scheme from listening in on recorded prison phone calls, where inmates would talk about how easy it was for everyone to get paid. They said the scheme always involved someone on the outside to facilitate the applications. In Kern County, home to five state prisons, one address was used to receive benefits for 16 inmates.

“In my nearly four decades as a prosecutor in this state, I have never seen fraud of this magnitude,” Kern County District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer said.