Menendez Brothers Should Be Resentenced, Says Los Angeles DA
Supporters of the Menendez brothers are now a major step closer to their goal of seeing Lyle and Erik Menendez released from prison. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced Thursday that he is recommending the brothers be re-sentenced for the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents. The news comes almost four years after Court TV re-released the footage of their 1996 trial and new projects on Netflix renewed people’s interest in the brothers’ case.
“After a very careful review of all the arguments that were made from people on both sides of this equation, I came to a place where I believe that under the law, resentencing is appropriate,” Gascón said at a packed press conference. “I am going to recommend that to a court tomorrow.” He said the brothers’ sentence of life without the possibility of parole should be rescinded in favor of new murder sentences that would make them “immediately” eligible for parole. He said his decision was driven by the brothers’ exemplary behavior behind bars but previously mentioned new evidence supporting the brothers’ claims of sexual abuse at the hands of their father.
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“When you look at the case of the Menendez brothers, you see two very young people. One was 19 and the other was 21 when they committed these horrible acts,” Gascón said. “And I want to underline they were horrible acts. There is no excuse for murder, and I will never imply that what we are doing here it to excuse that behavior. Because even if you get abused, the right path is to call the police and seek help. But I understand also how sometimes people get desperate. … And I do believe the brothers were subjected to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home and molestation.” Gascón said that after his office recommends resentencing, the next step would be a hearing in front of a judge. If the judge ultimately issues a new sentence with the possibility of parole, the brothers’ fate would then be in the hands of the state’s parole board, he said.
More than a dozen family members attended the press conference Thursday and expressed their gratitude for the DA’s decision. “This was a crime of passion. They’re not going to go out and kill random people. At their core, they’re good people,” Sylvia Bolock, a niece of José Menendez, told Rolling Stone. Bolock had raced to get on a 4 a.m. flight to be present for the DA’s announcement. “I’m really happy for them. It’s been such a long time since this happened,” she said, her suitcase by her side. “Obviously, they’ve learned from their mistakes. There are so many good things they’ve done since they’ve been in prison.”
Lyle and Erik rocketed to national prominence when they were implicated in the 1989 deaths of their parents inside the family’s $4 million Beverly Hills mansion. Late that August night, Beverly Hills police responded to an emergency call from Lyle that his parents had been mysteriously murdered. Investigators found the parents’ bodies riddled with shotgun wounds amid a horrific, blood-soaked scene. While Lyle and Erik were first treated by police as grieving orphans, the brothers were arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 1990. During their now-infamous first trial, which was broadcast live by Court TV in 1993, Erik and Lyle claimed they killed their parents because they were sexually assaulted by their father and feared for their lives. Prosecutors claimed the boys murdered for greed. Two juries, one for each brother, deadlocked. After a retrial, Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Gascón’s decision Thursday grew out of a request for resentencing that followed a writ of habeas corpus, a request to challenge a person’s imprisonment, filed last year by Lyle and Erik’s legal teams. The Menendez attorneys argued that the brothers’ retrial, in which prosecutors told jurors that Erik and Lyle’s sexual assault claims were a “total fabrication,” excluded crucial evidence that would have corroborated their claims. For example, Lyle’s older cousin, Diane VanderMolen, testified at the first trial that she was a guest at the Menendez home when an 8-year-old Lyle came to her and said he was afraid to sleep in his own room because his father allegedly was touching his genitals. Diane’s testimony was barred at the second trial.
The habeas petition also included new evidence that wasn’t available at the time of the brothers’ retrial. After the convictions, journalist Robert Rand obtained a letter that Erik wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano, eight months before the shooting deaths, when Erik was 17. In the letter excerpted in the petition, Erik described being abused by his father and how fearful he was. “It’s still happening Andy but it’s worse for me now,” Erik wrote. “I never know when it’s going to happen and its driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. …He’s warned me 100 times about telling anyone.” In his 2023 Peacock docuseries, Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, Rand also detailed new allegations from Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. Rossello claimed that José Menendez, a music executive, had sexually abused him, too.
“After 35 years of covering this case, I hope they’re released next month, but if it’s six months or a year from now, I’ll be fine with that. The important thing is they need to be re-sentenced to time served, and they need to go home to their wives and be reunited with their family,” Rand previously told Rolling Stone. “Both of their aunts — they’re in their eighties and nineties now — their dream is, before they die, they want to see Erik and Lyle as free men.”
Kitty’s 92-year-old sister Joan Andersen VanderMolen attended the press conference Thursday and shook her head in agreement as defense lawyer Mark Geragos said “35 years is enough,” referring to the time Kyle and Erik already have spent in custody.
Speaking to reporters, Geragos said he hopes the brothers will be home in time for Thanksgiving. “We have already put together a re-entry plan,” he said, referring to plans for the brothers if they’re released. “We have a robust re-entry plan that we have already previewed with the district attorney that went into their calculation recommending resentencing. Both of them are married to spouses who make a living, both of them are active students. Lyle is in a masters program. Erik is in an undergrad program. And they have family that would support them as well.”
The renewed interest in the Menedez brothers’ case began during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the Court TV channel released the entire recording of the trial online. Lyle and Erik became staple fixtures on true crime TikTok accounts, with the majority calling their imprisonment a miscarriage of justice. That interest has continued to grow since American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy released his retelling of the case in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in October. The growing public campaign to free the brothers from prison now includes celebrity supporters like Kim Kardashian.
Gas?on first announced on Oct. 5 that he was “reviewing evidence” in the brothers’ case following increased calls from their supporters. Since Lyle and Erik were convicted, additional evidence potentially corroborating their claims of sexual assault has been revealed in both the book The Menendez Murders and Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed. “It’s important to recognize that both men and women can be victims of sexual abuse,” Gas?on said. ”We have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us.”
On Oct. 16, relatives of the Menendez brothers gathered outside a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles and pleaded for their release. They said if the boys had been sisters, evidence of the alleged sexual abuse would have been accepted by the judge and led to a different outcome in their case.
“For many years, I struggled [with] what happened in my sister’s family. It was a nightmare none of us could have imagined. But as details of Lyle’s and Erik’s abuse came to light, it became clear that their actions, while tragic, were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable,” Kitty’s sister Joan said. “No jury today would issue such a harsh sentence without taking their trauma into account. Lyle and Erik have already paid a heavy price, discarded by a system that failed to recognize their pain. They have grown. They have changed and become better men, despite everything that they’ve been through. It’s time to give them the opportunity to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past.”
On Thursday, when asked what he wanted to tell the Menendez brothers, Gas?on focused on his continued hope for rehabilitation. “We appreciate what they did while they were in prison,” he said. “While I disapprove of the way they handled their abuse, we hope that they have not only learned, which it appears that they have, but they get reintegrated into their community.” Gascón said he believe the brothers had paid their “debt” to society.
“The DA’s decision reflects the truth that was hidden for so long, and I am grateful for his leadership in making this choice,” Anamaria Baralt, a niece of José Menendez, said at Gascón’s announcement Thursday. “This step gives us all hope that the truth will finally be heard and that Lyle and Erik can begin to heal from the trauma of their past.”
Menendez family lawyer Bryan Freedman said the brothers’ relatives are ready to “help” with their reintegration. “They’ve stayed in touch with the boys, and they love the boys,” Freedman told reporters as several relatives wiped tears. “These are the people who suffered all the way around, and they want the boys home. They want to hug them outside of prison. They want to connect with them and help them.”
Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the progressive prosecutorial reform group Prosecutors Alliance, praised Gascón’s decision Thursday.
“We now know that trauma during childhood can have a serious impact on development, and research tells us it should be considered during sentencing. We also know that young people age out of crime and that people convicted of violent crimes who are released after decades in prison rarely commit new crimes of violence,” she said in a statement. “Our criminal legal system must have mechanisms to revisit extreme sentences when we are presented with new information – especially evidence of trauma and abuse that wasn’t previously considered – and when individuals have done the hard work of rehabilitation.”
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