Prosecutors will recommend Erik and Lyle Menendez be resentenced for the 1989 killings of their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills home, providing the brothers with a chance at freedom after 34 years behind bars.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced during a Thursday news conference that his office would recommend the brothers be sentenced to 50 years to life. Because they were under 26 years old at the time of the crimes, they will be eligible for parole immediately, he said.
“I came to a place where I believe, under the law, resentencing is appropriate," Gascón said. Prosecutors will go to court Friday to make the request, but Gascón said some members of his office oppose the decision and may be in court as the case proceeds.
The Menendez brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot their entertainment executive father, Jose Menendez, and their mother, Kitty Menendez. The brothers said they feared their parents were about to kill them to stop people from finding out that Jose Menendez had sexually abused Erik Menendez for years.
The brothers’ extended family has pleaded for their release, saying they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
Multiple members of their extended family, including their aunt Joan Andersen VanderMolen, sat in the first few rows of Thursday's news conference. VanderMolen was Kitty Menendez’s sister and has publicly supported their release. Mark Geragos, an attorney for the brothers, was also there.
The Menendez brothers were tried twice for their parents’ murders, with the first trial ending in a hung jury.
Prosecutors at the time contended that there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in their story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the second trial. The district attorney’s office also said back then that the brothers were after their parents’ multimillion-dollar estate.
Despite their life sentences, Gascón said the brothers worked on redemption and rehabilitation inside prison.
“I believe that they have paid their debt to society,” he said.
Not all Menendez family members support resentencing. Attorneys for Milton Andersen, the 90-year-old brother of Kitty Menendez, filed a legal brief asking the court to keep the brothers’ original punishment. “They shot their mother, Kitty, reloading to ensure her death,” Andersen’s attorneys said in a statement Thursday. “The evidence remains overwhelmingly clear: the jury’s verdict was just, and the punishment fits the heinous crime.”
The LA district attorney is in the middle of a tough reelection fight against former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman who has blamed Gascón’s progressive reform policies for recent high-profile murders and increased retail crime.
Gascón said his office has recommended resentencing for some 300 offenders, including people behind bars for murder.
The Menendez case has gained new traction in recent weeks after Netflix began streaming the true-crime drama “ Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
The evidence under prosecutorial review included a letter written by Erik Menendez that his attorneys say corroborates the allegations that he was sexually abused by his father.
Roy Rossello, a former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, also recently came forward saying he was drugged and raped by Jose Menendez, the boys’ father, when he was a teen in the 1980s.
Menudo was signed under RCA Records, which Jose Menendez headed at the time.
Rossello spoke about his abuse in the 2023 Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.” His allegations are part of the evidence listed in the petition filed last year by the Menendez brothers’ attorney, seeking a review of their case. Rossello’s assertion that he was raped twice by Jose Menendez is part of the Menendez brothers’ petition.
Though Kitty Menendez was not accused of abusing her sons, she appears to have facilitated the abuse, according to the petition. One cousin testified during the brothers’ first trial that Lyle told her he was too scared to sleep in his room because his father would come in and touch his genitals. When the cousin told Kitty Menendez, she “angrily dragged Lyle upstairs by his arm,” the petition said.
Another family member testified that when Jose Menendez was in the bedroom with one of the boys, no one was allowed to walk down the hallway outside, according to the petition.
