Should evidence of sexual abuse set the Menendez brothers free?

On By Littum

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Aunts to Erik and Lyle Menendez testified on their behalf Monday as the brothers seek to get their 1989 judgments reconsidered in the shotgun murders of their parents in their Beverly Hills home more than 30 years ago.

The brothers were scheduled to appear in court for the first time in decades at the hearing in Los Angeles, but technical problems prevented them from appearing almost from a San Diego jail. They were found guilty of murdering Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

While their defense lawyers argued at trial that they had been sexually abused of their father, prosecutors denied it and accused them of killing their parents for money. In the years that followed, they repeatedly appealed their sentences without success.

Now, 53 and 56, Erik and Lyle Menendez make a new one bid for freedom. Their lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition – a request for a court to investigate whether someone is being lawfully detained – in May 2023, asking a judge to consider new evidence of their father’s sexual abuse. The brothers are being held at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.

Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister, and Teresita Baralt, Jose’s older sister, asked for their release Monday, saying 35 years was a long time for the brothers after being abused.

“We miss those who are gone tremendously,” Baralt said in tears after taking the stand. “But we also miss the children.”

The hearing ended after less than an hour. Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said he needed time to review the documents and give a new Los Angeles County district attorney time to weigh in on the case.

The latest releases of the Netflix drama ” Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story ” and the documentary “The Menendez Brothers” in 2024 brought renewed attention to their situation.

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Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez sit with defense attorney Leslie Abramson, right, in Beverly Hills District Court in Los Angeles during a hearing, November 26, 1990. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

Rose Castillo, a 28-year-old true crime enthusiast, arrived from Miami five minutes late to enter the lottery and win one of the few seats offered to the public to attend the hearing, but caught a glimpse of the brothers’ family members before entering. the courthouse.

“It was crazy,” Castillo said.

A bailiff in the courthouse asked people to stop taking pictures of the relatives as they waited in the hallway for the hearing to start along with media and spectators.

Prosecutors recommended outrage for the brothers last month and said they have been working on redemption and rehabilitation and demonstrating good behavior inside the prison.

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón held a press conference less than two weeks before Election Day and asked for new sentences of 50 years to life. This could make them immediately eligible for parole because they were less than 26 years old when they killed their parents.

The extended family of the brothers have said they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Not all Menendez family members support outrage. Lawyers for Milton Andersen, the 90-year-old brother of Kitty Menendez, filed a lawsuit asking the court to uphold the brothers’ original sentence. “They shot their mother, Kitty, to ensure her death,” Andersen’s lawyers said in a statement last month. “The evidence remains overwhelmingly clear: the jury’s verdict was fair and the punishment fit the heinous crime.”

Jesic said Monday that he will consider the review request on Jan. 30 instead of Dec. 11 as originally planned. The judge said he had 17 boxes of documents to go through.

It includes evidence of abuse raised in the habeas petition.

The new evidence includes a letter Erik Menendez wrote in 1988 to his uncle Andy Cano, detailing the sexual abuse he suffered from his father. The brothers asked their lawyers about it after it was mentioned in a 2015 Barbara Walters television special. The lawyers had not known about the letter and realized it had not been introduced during their trials, making it new evidence. which they say confirms claims that Erik was sexually abused by his father.

More new evidence emerged when Roy Rossello, a former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, recently came forward and said he had been drugged and raped by Jose Menendez, the boys’ father, when he was a teenager in the 1980s. Menudo was signed to RCA Records, where Jose Menendez was the operations manager.

Rossello spoke about his abuse on the Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” and provided a signed statement to the brothers’ lawyers.

Had these two pieces of evidence been available at the brothers’ trial, prosecutors would not have been able to argue that there was no corroboration of sexual abuse or that their father Jose Menendez was not “the kind of man who would” abuse children , the petition claims.

While clemency may be another path to freedom for the brothers, California Governor Gavin Newsom said last week that he won’t decide until incoming Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who takes office Dec. 2, reviews the case. Hochman, a Republican who became an independent and unseated the progressive Gascón, has said he wants to take a close look at the evidence before making any decisions.