LOS ANGELES (CNS) – District Attorney Nathan Hochman will provide an update Friday on the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez, possibly to announce whether he will support a family-led effort to have the pair re-sentenced for the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents in Beverly Hills and ultimately released from prison.
Hochman’s predecessor as district attorney, George Gascón, came out in support of the effort to have the brothers’ conviction and sentencing reviewed, and for the pair to be potentially released. They are both serving life-without-parole prison terms for their convictions in the highly publicized case.
Hochman, however, has yet to announce whether he would support the effort to have the brothers released, saying he wanted time to fully review all the case documents before reaching a decision. A hearing on the matter had been scheduled for late January, but it was rescheduled for March 20-21 due to the Southland wildfires.
Attorneys for the brothers are pursuing various avenues in hopes of securing their release from prison, contending that new evidence backs the brothers’ claims that they were sexually abused by their father. They have argued for the brother’s convictions to be overturned altogether, or that they be re-sentenced in a way allowing them to seek parole, or that their convictions be reduced to manslaughter and they be re-sentenced to time already served behind bars.
The pair were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the chance of parole for killing Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez on Aug. 20, 1989.
In a 2023 court petition, attorneys for Erik Menendez, 53, and Lyle Menendez, 56, pointed to two new pieces of evidence they contend corroborate the brothers’ allegations of long-term sexual abuse at the hands of their father — a letter written by Erik Menendez to one of his cousins in early 1989, eight months before the August 1989 killings, and recent allegations by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, that he too was sexually abused by Jose Menendez as a teenager.
Jose Menendez was an executive at RCA Records, which signed Menudo to a recording contract.
Interest in the case surged following the release of a recent Netflix documentary and dramatic series.
The Menendez brothers’ defense team also submitted papers to Gov. Gavin Newsom requesting clemency, but the governor said he would not make any decision on the request until Hochman has a chance to review the nearly 35-year- old case.
During their two highly publicized trials, the brothers did not dispute that they killed their parents, but claimed self-defense, citing decades of alleged physical and sexual abuse by their father. Prosecutors countered that the killings were financially motivated, pointing to lavish spending sprees by the brothers after the killings.
Over the past year, members of the brothers’ family have publicly come out in support of efforts to have them released from prison. In January, members of the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition — including more than 20 members of Jose and Kitty Menendez’s family — met with Hochman to discuss the case.
Organizers of that meeting said the family is united in supporting a new sentence for the brothers that “reflects Erik and Lyle’s abuse, trauma, and demonstrated rehabilitation over the last 35 years.”
Hochman called the meeting “productive” but again said he would not make any decisions until his office completed a thorough review of the case materials — including thousands of pages of prison records and transcripts from the brothers’ two trials and appellate court proceedings.
Speaking to reporters after the January meeting, Anamaria Baralt, a niece of Jose Menendez, said the family is hoping a judge will agree to an immediate reduction of the brothers’ conviction to a lesser charge of manslaughter, which would potentially enable them to be released without the need for extensive parole hearings.
“This 35-year process has been incredibly traumatizing for us, as I’m sure you can all imagine,” Baralt said. “We are very much hoping that we can find a path to manslaughter. That we can see the release of the brothers immediately. To understand that going to a parole board for our family will only serve to retraumatize us more. Two parole boards. Two brothers, again with victim statements. We have had enough. It is a lot — 35 years is a very long time. So we hope that will happen.”
During an hourlong hearing in Van Nuys in November, a judge heard testimony from two of the brothers’ aunts, both of whom pleaded for their release from prison. Judge Michael Jesic made no immediate decision, instead scheduling the two-day hearing that is now set for late March.
Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, and Terry Baralt, Jose’s older sister, asked for the brothers’ release, saying 35 years was enough prison time for Erik and Lyle Menendez considering the abuse they allegedly suffered at the hands of their father.
“We miss those who are gone tremendously,” Terry Baralt, 85, testified. “But we miss the kids too.”
Baralt, who became emotional during her time on the stand, told the court that “it’s time for them to come home,” adding that the brothers “have done a lot of good things” while incarcerated.
Asked by Brock Lunsford, assistant head deputy of the District Attorney’s Post-Conviction and Litigation unit, if she knew exactly why her nephews were in prison, Baralt replied, “Absolutely. They killed their parents.”
VanderMolen, 93, read a statement to the court, imploring the judge to release the brothers.
“No child should have to endure what Lyle and Eric have lived through,” she said. “No child should have to live … knowing that at night, their father was going to rape them. It’s time for them to come home.”
VanderMolen said that she speaks for all members of her family apart from her brother Milton Andersen, Kitty Menendez’s 90-year-old brother, who has said previously through an attorney that his nephews’ “cold-blooded actions shattered their family.”
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