The Menendez brothers could be free within weeks thanks to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón.
As Deadline exclusively reported earlier today, the prosecutor is recommending resentencing for the siblings, In a delayed downtown LA press conference and surrounded by members of the Menendez family, the DA said Thursday he will ask the court tomorrow that their life sentence life be lifted. If a LA Superior Court judge resentences the brothers for manslaughter instead of first degree murder, they would be eligible for parole immediately.
Given life in prison without parole in their second trial in 1996 for the 1989 shotgun killing of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez. Having exhausted their appeal options, the case of Erik, 55, and Lyle, 56, received renewed attention from new evidence revealed in a Peacock documentary last year and Ryan Murphy’s Netflix hit Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
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With Gascón’s long teased move Thursday, the matter now goes to a LASC judge.
In a November 26 scheduled hearing, that judge could order a new trial for the brothers or reduced prison time. As various officials and nearly two dozens family members have vouched for the brothers rehabilitation over the decades, the judge could also let the siblings walk out of the the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego where they are both incarcerated.
As those opposed to resentencing or reopening the case in Gascón’s own office will tell you, there is no question that then 19 Erik and 21 Lyle pre-meditated the murders. The brother even reloaded their guns that night to make sure their mother was dead. The duo also went on an ostentatious spending spree in the immediate aftermath of their parents’ deaths, which damned them in the view of many. However, the circumstances that lead to those horrible shootings have increasingly become viewed from a new point of view — especially with more evidence now available.
In possession by the LA DA’s office for almost a year, that new evidence includes a 1988 letter Erik Menendez wrote to one of his cousins of the intense sexual abuse suffered from his father. The handwritten correspondence was penned and sent months before the brothers killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home. “I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy,” the younger Menendez wrote to his relative of the attacks by his “overweight” father.
Oddly, Gascón posted the letter online earlier this week, but delated it soon afterwards.
In fact, most of the previously available evidence about sexual abuse at the hands of Jose Menendez was excluded from the brothers’ second trial in the mid-1990s. Since then, along with the shift in perspective society has had in regards to the sexual abuse of men, it has also come to light that the music executive Jose Menendez allegedly sexually abused at least one of the members of the boy band Menudo too.
Several members of the Menendez family, many quite old, were in attendance at the DTLA Hall of Justice press conference Thursday afternoon, along with their lawyer Bryan Freedman.
Capturing local, national and international attention the past few weeks with his sudden interest in the Menendez case, incumbent Gascón is facing very strong electoral competition from ex-U.S. Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hochman in his bid for a second term. Lambasted for some of his more progressive stances, the double recall defeating Gascón is now down double digits from Hochman and in need of a win or two heading towards next month’s election.
The Menendez brothers may provide such a win or at least, the impression of one, for Gascón.
“The timing is incredibly suspicious,” Hochman said of Gascón’s recent direct interest in the Menendez case in an October 8 televised debate between rivals. “You certainly would not have me hold a press conference to tell you I’m just thinking about it,” Hochman added of Gascón’s oddly ambiguous stint before the cameras on October 3.
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The post Menendez Brothers Eligible For Possible Immediate Parole As L.A. DA Recommends Resentencing; Judge Will Consider Case Next Month appeared first on Deadline.
