LOS ANGELES — Greater than three many years after Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their mother and father in a sensational homicide case that captivated the nation, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón stated Thursday his workplace would evaluate what he described as new proof that the brothers have been molested, a transfer that might result in their resentencing.
Gascón stated there was no query the brothers dedicated the murders however stated the problem was whether or not the jury heard proof that their father molested them. Proof detailing sexual abuse was offered throughout the brothers’ first trial, which resulted in hung juries, however was largely withheld throughout their second trial, the place they have been convicted and sentenced to life in jail.
“We’re not able to imagine or not imagine that info,” Gascon stated of the alleged molestation. “However we’re right here to inform you that we now have a ethical and moral obligation to evaluate what’s being offered to us and make a willpower.”
The method may pave the best way for the brothers to be retried, resentenced to a lesser jail time period or launched from custody. Gascón stated he had not made a ultimate determination.
In 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez purchased a pair of shotguns with money, walked into their Beverly Hills residence and shot their mother and father whereas they watched a film within the household front room. Prosecutors stated Jose Menendez was struck 5 instances, together with behind the pinnacle, and Kitty Menendez crawled on the ground wounded earlier than the brothers reloaded and fired a ultimate deadly blast.
Initially, police speculated the killings have been a mafia hit primarily based off the ugly scene within the residence. Erik and Lyle Menendez have been finally charged with homicide after Erik, who was then 18 years previous, confessed to the killings to his therapist in March 1990.
Prosecutors argued the brothers’ motivation within the killings was a easy one: to achieve entry to their mother and father’ multimillion-dollar property. However the brothers’ protection attorneys countered that years of violent sexual abuse by the hands of their father preceded the shootings, justifying the killings as a type of self-defense.
Gascón’s announcement comes greater than a yr after Erik and Lyle Menendez filed a writ of habeas corpus asking the court docket to vacate their 1996 conviction, citing new proof. A listening to on the habeas corpus is anticipated to be held on Nov. 26. Gascón stated he wished to “deliver finality” to the case by the point the listening to was held however didn’t say that his evaluate can be accomplished by then.
“They’re clearly it intently, which is nice,” stated Cliff Gardner, one of many attorneys representing the brothers. “I’m inspired by it as a result of I believe that anybody that takes a take a look at that proof goes to stroll away with the understanding these boys have been molested as kids.”
Gardner stated, because the submitting final yr, prosecutors had requested the court docket a number of instances to push again a date for the listening to so as to evaluate the case. Regardless of the size of time it’s taken for a choice to be reached, he stated he discovered it to be encouraging.
“The truth that they’re taking their time lets me know they’re taking it severely,” he stated.
The petition pointed to proof from a Peacock docuseries, “ Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” which raised allegations that the brothers’ father, Jose Menendez, sexually assaulted a former underage member of the Nineteen Eighties pop band Menudo.
The three-part sequence, reported by journalists Nery Ynclan and Robert Rand, alleged that the creator of the internationally identified music group, Edgardo Díaz, took one of many underage members of the band to Jose Menendez’s New Jersey residence, the place he was raped and drugged by the elder Menendez.
Within the docuseries, Roy Roselló stated he was 13 or 14 years previous on the time, and urged the journey was to assist seal a deal between the band and RCA Data, the place Jose Menendez labored as an govt.
The brothers’ petition states that the brand new allegations of sexual abuse again their argument that the murders have been an act of self-defense after going through years of abuse by their mother and father, and fears that their mother and father would kill them in the event that they instructed.
The brothers’ first trial, which included disturbing testimony detailing the abuse, resulted in two hung juries. Within the second trial, a lot of the proof of the abuse was excluded, in keeping with the habeas petition. Prosecutors argued on the time that the allegations of abuse have been “a complete fabrication.”
The information comes on the heels of one other present primarily based on the Menendezes, an eight-part dramatic sequence on Netflix known as “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” The present focuses on the occasions main as much as the killings and the cultural second in Los Angeles wherein the brothers confronted homicide costs.
Final month, Erik Menendez’s spouse, Tammi Menendez, posted an announcement on social media from him concerning the sequence and the way the brothers have been depicted, calling it “inaccurate” and that Lyle’s depiction was a “caricature” that was “rooted in horrible and blatant lies.”
“Monsters” co-creator Ryan Murphy defended himself in an interview with The Occasions final month.
“I believe it’s fake outrage,” he stated. “I believe that this story, this Netflix sequence, is the very best factor that has occurred to the Menendez brothers in 30 years as a result of it’s getting folks to speak about it, and it’s getting folks to ask the questions which might be vital.”
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