Murder Conviction Comes After 31 Years

Thirty-one years after a popular nightclub owner was shot to death in an apparent confrontation with would-be robbers, the victim’s children said they gained a measure of satisfaction this week in seeing one of the men convicted of murder.

Thomas Joseph Ezerkis, 55, was found guilty Wednesday of first-degree murder in the Jan. 2, 1972, slaying of Ara Arax. Ezerkis and another man, Charles Silvani, were not implicated until November 2000, when an informant helped break the case.

“From our standpoint, it’s very satisfying, but there are still all these questions,” said the victim’s son, Mark Arax, the Los Angeles Times’ Fresno bureau chief.

“The wheels of justice finally turned our way.”