LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles district attorney will give an update Friday on the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, brothers who are seeking release after their 1996 conviction for the murder of their wealthy parents at their Beverly Hills home.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who took office in December, has yet to say whether he supports the proposed resentencing for the brothers, which will be taken up at a March hearing and would make them immediately eligible for parole.
The brothers were found guilty in the 1989 murders of their entertainment executive father, Jose, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They began their bid for freedom in recent years after new evidence of their father’s sexual abuse emerged in their case, and they have the support of most of their extended family.
In October, then-District Attorney George Gascón recommended the brothers be resentenced to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. But Gascón lost his bid for reelection in November to Hochman, who called the recommendation a “desperate political move.”
A resentencing hearing originally scheduled for early December was delayed to the end of January after Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said he needed time to review extensive evidence and give Hochman time to weigh in on the case. In January, Hochman pushed the hearing out another two months — to March 20 and 21 — because of the Los Angeles wildfires.
Hochman has met with the brothers’ relatives as he reviews their case, which includes thousands of pages of prison records to determine the “rehabilitation aspect” of their resentencing.
Lyle Menendez, who was then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot-gunned their parents, but they said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent disclosure of their father’s long-term molestation of Erik.
Prosecutors said at the time there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in their story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the trial that led to their conviction in 1996. Prosecutors accused the brothers of killing their parents for money.
Roy Rossello, former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, recently came forward saying he was drugged and raped by Jose Menendez when he was a teen in the 1980s. Menudo was signed under RCA Records, which Jose Menendez was the head of at the time.
The case has gained new traction after Netflix began streaming the true-crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. ”
Originally Published: February 21, 2025 at 11:15 AM PST
