DA requests resentencing for Menendez brothers, opening path to release
Erik (left) and Lyle Menendez were sentenced to life in prison in 1996. (Photo by Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images)
The Los Angeles district attorney’s office announced on Thursday that it will request the resentencing of Erik and Lyle Menendez, a pair of brothers sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for killing their parents, heeding calls by their family to reconsider their case after new evidence emerged backing the brothers’ defense that they were physically and sexually abused by their father.
The decision could lead to the release of the brothers after decades in prison. Their case, which became one of the first real-life court dramas broadcast in full on cable television, was recently revived by a Netflix series and a push by their family for their freedom.
George Gascón, the county’s top prosecutor, announced the decision in a news conference Thursday afternoon.
“They have been in prison for nearly 35 years,” Gascón said. “I believe that they have paid their debt to society.”
Gascón’s office will recommend to the court that the brothers receive sentences of 50 years to life with the possibility for parole. Because the brothers were under 26 when the crimes occurred, they would be immediately eligible, Gascón said.
Anamaria Baralt, a niece of the siblings’ father, José Menendez, thanked Gascón at the news conference for taking a “brave and necessary step forward.”
“Today is a day filled with hope for our family,” said Baralt, who has called for the brothers’ release.
The Prosecutors Alliance, a progressive nonprofit, lauded the decision 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,” Prosecutors Alliance Executive Director Cristine Soto DeBerry said.
Gascón added that there was disagreement in his office about the decision.
“We don’t have a universal agreement,” he said. “There are people in the office that strongly believe that the Menendez brothers should stay in prison the rest of their life … and there are people in the office that strongly believe they should be released immediately.”
There is disagreement within the brothers’ family, too. Milton Anderson, a brother-in-law of José Menendez, said through an attorney last week that he opposed the brothers’ release, NBC Los Angeles reported.
Prosecutors said the Menendez brothers killed their parents for money. They received a portion of their family’s $14 million estate, blowing $700,000 in about six months on real estate, luxury items and tennis lessons.
But the brothers have long said the 1989 shotgun killings were the result of years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by their father and indifference from their mother. Evidence of the abuse was barred from being discussed in their 1996 trial.
“If Lyle and Erik’s case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and [post-traumatic stress disorder], there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,” Baralt, the niece of José Menendez, said last week.
Those same concerns were echoed in “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which premiered Sept. 19 on Netflix. The series stars Nicholas Chavez as Lyle and Cooper Koch as Erik. Javier Bardem portrays José Menendez, and Chloë Sevigny portrays Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, the brothers’ mother.
Along with renewed notoriety from the Netflix show, new evidence in the case has surfaced.
One of the items was a letter Erik Menendez wrote to a cousin in 1988, a year before the killings, that came to light in 2023 as the siblings’ attorneys were petitioning the court to release the brothers.
“Its still happening Andy but it’s worse for me now,” Menendez wrote to the cousin, Andy Cano, according to the petition. “ … I never know when its going to happen and its driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in.”
There also was the allegation that José Menendez raped Roy Rosselló—a former member of the iconic 1980s boy band Menudo, which was known as the “Hispanic Beatles.”
Menendez attorney Mark Geragos said Rosselló alleges that, as a teen, he was drugged and raped by the Menendez patriarch—then an executive at RCA Records, which had a recording deal with Menudo.
In announcing his decision Thursday, Gascón said he did not excuse murder but acknowledged the abuse the brothers said they suffered.
“I do believe the brothers were subjected to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home and molestation,” he said.
Gascón said his decision also came after reviewing the brothers’ prison files and becoming convinced they had been rehabilitated. Despite facing no possibility of parole, the brothers pursued education behind bars and created groups to support inmates with untreated trauma and physical disabilities, Gascón said.
A hearing for the habeas petition is set for Nov. 29 in Los Angeles. If the petition is granted, Geragos said, the brothers’ conviction could be overturned following a new trial. That is separate from the request for a resentencing.
Gascón, a progressive and reform-minded district attorney, faces a difficult reelection that may have freed him to make his decision unencumbered by political strategy. His challenger in next month’s election, Nathan Hochman—an independent who unsuccessfully ran for state attorney general as a Republican—is receiving serious money and support, and he leads Gascón in recent polling by a wide margin.
Gascón declined to answer questions on the election Thursday. Asked whether a successor could reverse his decision, Gascón said he didn’t believe that would be possible once the recommendation is filed.
Gascón said the recommendation will be filed in court Friday. It will be up to a judge to decide whether the Menendez brothers can be released.
Reis Thebault and Jiselle Lee contributed to this report.
