Menendez brothers’ bid for freedom set to reach a courtroom next week
- Share via
After decades in prison for the brutal murders of their parents, the waiting is nearly over for brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez in their bid for freedom.
Following disagreements between the current and former Los Angeles County district attorney and a series of legal fits and starts delayed the matter in recent months, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said Friday that the brothers’ resentencing hearing can go forward Tuesday. The hearing is expected to last two days at the Van Nuys Courthouse.
The brothers were convicted of murder with special circumstances in the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents, Jose and Kitty, at the family’s Beverly Hills home.
A resentencing hearing that could have given the brothers a shot at parole was delayed after a fight over a parole document ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom paralyzed proceedings.
Erik, then 18, confessed to the killings in a conversation with his therapist and the two brothers were later sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. While Erik and Lyle claimed Jose sexually abused them and was a threat to their lives, prosecutors contended they killed their parents to get early access to their multimillion-dollar inheritance.
The brothers have been hoping for their day in court since October, when then-Dist. Atty. George Gascón asked a judge to make them eligible for parole. Resentencing could trigger their eligibility for parole through the state’s youthful offender law since they were under 26 at the time of the murders.
Gascón cited the brothers’ work creating rehabilitation programs in prison, their low-risk assessments from corrections officials and potential new evidence about their father’s alleged abusive behavior as reasons they should be set free.
But after Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman trounced Gascón in November, he vowed to re-examine the case. In March, he said he would not support resentencing, contending the brothers had not taken proper “insight” into their crimes and were still lying about being afraid their parents might kill them to cover up Jose’s alleged abuse.
A sex abuse allegation against a youth soccer coach appears to have languished for months before the coach was charged with killing a 13-year-old boy.
Hochman previously asked Jesic to disregard Gascón’s motion and only consider filings submitted under his administration in the case, but the judge rejected that bid last month, saying there “was nothing really new” in those filings.
Hochman, who appeared on the record in court alongside the line prosecutors assigned to the case, again asked Jesic to throw out Gascón’s petition Friday. This time, he insisted information contained in a risk-assessment report generated by the parole board under the direction of Gov. Gavin Newsom — who is separately considering a request for clemency from the brothers — would have been critical for Gascón to review.
The brothers’ risk level was raised from “low” to “moderate” in the report. Hochman said the report also said that Erik was caught with a cellphone, which is considered contraband in prison, in November. The phone demonstrated that Erik continues to show “elements of entitlement,” according to Hochman.
“He has continued to display narcissistic and antisocial traits,” Hochman said, reading from the report.
Hochman said Lyle, too, had used an illegal cellphone this year and admitted to aiding another inmate with tax fraud 15 years ago and purchasing narcotics in prison. The district attorney said those incidents proved the brothers showed a pattern of deceit behind bars.
Delivering on a campaign promise, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman says he will allow prosecutors to seek capital punishment in certain murder cases, undoing a policy of his predecessor, George Gascón.
Jesic again denied Hochman’s request, saying the report would need to contain something so shocking that Gascón would have reconsidered his position, such as proof the brothers joined a notorious prison gang, such as the Mexican Mafia.
A coalition of relatives supporting Erik and Lyle’s release has been in dispute with Hochman over the case in recent weeks, some of which served as the basis of a motion filed last month by defense attorney Mark Geragos seeking to disqualify Hochman and his prosecutors.
The family has accused Hochman of holding a bias against the brothers and acting “hostile, dismissive and patronizing” toward them during a meeting earlier this year. Geragos also contends Hochman created a conflict by hiring Kathy Cady — a former prosecutor and victims rights attorney who previously represented the lone Menendez relative opposed to their release — as the director of his bureau of victims services. Hochman has maintained Cady is “walled off” from the case.
The family has also questioned Hochman’s decision to transfer the two prosecutors who filed the initial motion to resentence the brothers. The attorneys, Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford, have sued Hochman for retaliation.
Hochman has denied allegations of bias and said he is simply following the law. Geragos withdrew his motion to disqualify on Friday because it would delay the re-sentencing hearing.
An attorney for relatives supporting the brothers, Bryan Freedman, continued to criticize the D.A. in court Friday.
Freedman accused Hochman of spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” by hiring a communications consultant to disparage the Menendez family during his successful campaign for office last year.
While Hochman did make an issue of the Menendez case during the campaign — going so far as to accuse Gascón of seeking to re-sentence the brothers for political purposes — the issue was raised only in the final weeks of the race.
LAG Strategies, the public relations firm that handled communications for Hochman when he was a candidate, had been working on his campaign for nearly a year at that point.
Stu Pfeifer, the head of the firm, declined to comment. Pfeifer is a former Times reporter. Hochman said the firm had done no work for him since his inauguration.
In fiery remarks outside the courthouse, Hochman accused the Menendez camp of spreading misinformation and “hoping that that somehow will sell in the media.”
“Shame on them,” he said.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
