Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman is expected to provide an update Friday afternoon about Erik and Lyle Menendez, two brothers serving life terms for killing their parents who have sought to be released from prison.
The 1989 killing inside the family’s Beverly Hills home, and the highly publicized trials that followed, sparked documentaries, films and a recent television series that have renewed public interest in the case decades later. Revelations made in the last year have also prompted new consideration of their crimes and pleas for them to be freed.
The brothers’ life sentences seemed to be on the way to be reconsidered last year, after then-Dist. Atty. George Gascón said he supported granting them clemency . Gascón asked a judge to rescind the brothers’ prior life sentences without the possibility of parole and instead sentence them to 50 years to life. The move could make them eligible for parole as youthful offenders because they were younger than 26 when they killed their parents.
Gascón said at the time that he believed the brothers had “paid their debt to society.” But after defeating Gascon in the November election, Hochman has said he intends to review that decision.
A hearing to determine if the brothers should be resentenced is scheduled for March 20.
Hochman’s update on the case comes a day after Erik and Lyle Menendez spoke to TMZ about their time in prison, which they said included attacks and bullying during their early days behind bars.
During the “2 Angry Men” podcast with Harvey Levin and Mark Geragos, the younger of the Menendez brothers, Erik, discussed the “bullying and trauma” he’s endured over the years.
“Prison was hard for me,” he said, speaking of his incarceration in past tense. “I faced a lot of bullying and trauma — it was a dangerous environment.”
Sources told The Times that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office communicated with the brothers’ legal representation after they described their experiences behind bars.
Their three decades imprisoned could come under scrutiny as part of their appeal for freedom. Hochman has said previously that, before making a decision, he needs to review not just the criminal case, but the Menendez brothers prison files, their time behind bars, and question whether the two have been rehabilitated.
Fellow inmates, attorneys and rehabilitation workers have told The Times the two have become deeply involved in rehabilitation programs, including launching their own projects to promote rehabilitation of inmates in California prisons.
They are starkly different portraits of the brothers compared with how they were portrayed during their trials.
In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez bought a pair of shotguns with cash, walked into their Beverly Hills home and shot their parents while 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 floor wounded before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.
Police initially speculated the killings were a mafia hit based on the gruesome scene. But the brothers were eventually charged with murder after Erik, who was then 18 years old, confessed the killings to his therapist in March 1990.
During the trial, prosecutors argued the brothers’ motive for killing their parents was rooted in greed — centered on access to their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate. The brothers’ defense attorneys countered that years of violent sexual abuse by their father preceded the shootings, justifying the killings as a form of self-defense.
The first trial ended with hung juries for each brother. In the second, allegations of abuse and supporting testimonies were restricted, and Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1996.
Since then, the two have pursued appeals for years without success, but last year appeared to reach a turning point. Attorneys and advocates in May called for the court to take another look at the case amid new sexual assault allegations they say corroborate a history of abuse against the brothers.
A recently discovered letter that attorneys say was written by Erik Menendez suggests sexual abuse by his father continued into his late teenage years. And new allegations made by a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo suggest Lyle and Erik Menendez were not the only victims.
Roy Rosselló, who raised the allegations in the Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” said he was raped in the 1980s by Jose Menendez when he was a teen.
A petition filed on behalf of the brothers in Los Angeles County Superior Court last year argued that the new evidence directly challenged the argument prosecutors made during trial, paving the way for their case to be reconsidered.
Earlier this month, two Los Angeles County prosecutors who recommended the brothers be freed from prison — Brock Lunsford, who oversaw the district attorney’s resentencing unit, and Nancy Theberge — alleged they were punished by Hochman and defamed online by one of his political allies.
The brothers’ relatives who have supported the brothers’ release expressed concern this month that Hochman might be injecting politics into the case, as evidenced by the removal of Lunsford and Theberge. Nearly two dozen family members have met with Hochman to offer their support for Erik and Lyle.
“Their commitment to the facts and the law was a source of hope for us, reaffirming our belief in the justice system’s ability to evolve,” the family said of the prosecutors. “The decision to remove these dedicated prosecutors from the case, however, underscored exactly what we feared, that political influences might overshadow justice.”
Staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
