District of Los Angeles County. Atty. George Gascón will ask a judge to sentence Erik and Lyle Menendez, two brothers sentenced to life for the murder of their parents, a decision that could pave the way for their release.
Gascón will ask that the brothers be convicted of murder and immediately be eligible for parole, he said at a news conference Thursday.
“I’ve come to a point where I believe that under the law, re-sentencing is appropriate, and I’m going to recommend it,” Gascón said. “What that means in this particular case is that we are going to recommend to the court that life without parole be removed and that they be convicted of murder.”
The two brothers were sentenced to life without parole after a jury found them guilty of killing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home with a pair of shotguns. The 1989 murders and subsequent televised trial spawned documentaries, films and television series that made the brothers two of the most publicly known convicts.
The brothers have appealed for years without success, but now they may find a path to freedom. It is a judge who will ultimately decide whether the brothers will be released.
In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez bought a pair of shotguns with cash, entered their Beverly Hills home and shot their parents as they watched a movie in the family living room. Prosecutors said Jose Menendez was struck five times, including in the back of the head, and Kitty Menendez crawled on the ground, injured, before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, deadly blast.
Initially, it was rumored that the killings were the work of a mob.
Prosecutors would say the killings were motivated by greed and the brothers’ desire to recover their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.
But during the trials, Erik and Lyle Menendez and their attorneys detailed what they said were years of violent sexual abuse the brothers suffered at the hands of their father.
Earlier this month, more than 20 relatives of the brothers pleaded at a news conference for the two men to be released.
“If Erik and Lyle’s case were heard today, with the understanding we now have of the abuse and [post-traumatic stress disorder]there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,” said Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of the siblings.
During his tenure as attorney general, Gascón obtained new sentences for more than 300 people, 28 of whom were convicted of murder, but the Menendez brothers are the most high-profile convicts to have their sentences reduced at the request of the prosecutor .
The brothers’ lawyers filed a habeas petition last year, arguing that new evidence supported their claim that they had been sexually abused by their father for years before the murders.
The filing included a letter Erik Menendez sent to his cousin in December 1988 — eight months before the murders — that appeared to corroborate the abuse allegations. It also included a statement from Roy Rosselló, a member of the boy band Menudo, who claimed that José Menendez raped him in 1984, when he was 13 or 14 years old.
Gascón’s office has been reviewing the petition and the file for more than a year.
Earlier this month, he said his office had a “moral and ethical obligation to look at what is presented to us and make a decision.”
There’s no doubt the brothers killed their parents, but Gascón said the question is whether the jury heard evidence that their father molested them and whether that evidence could have affected the outcome of the trial.
Evidence of sexual abuse, including testimony from family friends and relatives, was included in the siblings’ first trial, which ended in a hung jury.
But when they were retried together, the jury didn’t hear much testimony supporting their allegations of sexual abuse. Both men were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1996.
The case has received renewed public attention, sparked by television series and documentaries focusing on the notorious murders. A Peacock documentary series, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” raised allegations that Jose Menendez, an RCA Records executive, had sexually assaulted Rosselló.
Gascón’s decision has been criticized by those who believe it is a political ploy to support his re-election campaign.
Kitty Menendez’s brother, Milton Andersen, 90, released a statement Thursday criticizing the decision to seek new sentences against the brothers. He said Gascón refused to meet with him to discuss his decision before announcing it to the press.
Andersen’s lawyer, Kathy Cady, said the prosecutor was “manipulating[d] the facts for a fleeting chance to save his political career.
On Tuesday, Cady filed an amicus curiae request to oppose possible resentencing of the brothers.
Gascon’s election challenger, Nathan Hochman, also questioned the timing of the prosecutor’s action in the case, suggesting he is making headlines to try to save his re-election bid. Polls show Gascon trailing Hochman by 30 percentage points, and a Times campaign finance analysis shows the challenger has raised significantly more money than the prosecutor.
Dmitry Gorin, a criminal defense lawyer, said that at the initial trial the evidence was clear that the killings were premeditated, but that the case appeared to have a chance of being reexamined given the liberal policies of the office of the prosecutor under Gascón.
A judge is likely to approve the prosecutor’s request, given that it is also supported by the brothers’ defense attorneys.
“I give credit to the defense for filing their case on time,” he said. “If this was filed in December with a new prosecutor, probably, they won’t get away with it. Most of [district attorneys] in California, they wouldn’t let them out.
