LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón told NBC News on Wednesday that he hopes to make a decision within 10 days on whether to recommend re-sentencing of the Menendez brothers — and that if he does, they will likely get out of court. Prison by 2020. End of year.
“It’s up to the court to decide which path they want to take, but it’s possible they will,” Gascón said in an interview at the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles shortly after a news conference held by Menendez’s family members, who are demanding that the court decide what path they want to take. In order to release the brothers.
He added: “If they are indeed rehabilitated as we have been told, which is what we are reviewing, then I do not think they should spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
Eric and Lyle Menendez are serving life without parole for the 1989 murder of their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home.
More than a dozen relatives of the brothers say that not only did they spend their time behind bars, but the original case did not properly weigh their claims that their father sexually and physically abused them.
“If Lyle and Eric’s case had been heard today, with the understanding we have now about abuse and PTSD, there’s no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,” Anamaria Baralt, Jose Menendez’s niece, told reporters on Wednesday.
Gascón said that while he is still reviewing the evidence, based on what he has seen so far, he agrees with those family members and also believes the brothers’ claims that they were molested.
“I think there is a certain level of evidence that there are a lot of problems in the family,” he said.
The brothers were first tried together in 1993, but the jury deadlocked. Prosecutors retried them in 1995, when a judge deemed most of the sexual assault allegations inadmissible, as prosecutors convinced jurors they killed their parents to inherit money and went on a spending spree after the murders.
But last year, the brothers presented what they said was new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse, including a letter one of the brothers allegedly sent to his cousin months before his father was killed. “I was trying to avoid my father… Every night, I would stay awake thinking he might come,” he wrote.
Ruy Rosselló, a former member of the band Menudo, also spoke out in Peacock’s documentary series “Menendez + Menudo: Betrayal of the Boys”, alleging that he was also raped by Jose Menendez. Peacock is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.
Not all the family believes the brothers.
Cathy Cady, who represents Milton Andersen’s Kitty Menendez, said in an interview that her client did not believe his nephews were molested and were motivated by greed.
“Even if these allegations are true, they do not justify what they did to their parents, and they do not justify the murders they committed,” Cady said. “And again, the timing of them committing the murders just when they knew they were going to be taken out of the will seems to suggest otherwise.”
Gascón, who polls show is falling in his re-election bid, has recently begun speaking out about his office’s role in the case as he reviews new evidence.
The case has received renewed attention following the release of the popular Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which dramatizes their story.
Despite significant public interest in the case, their release is by no means guaranteed, said Lori Levinson, a professor at Loyola University Law School who specializes in criminal cases.
“The court of public opinion can provide some moral support to the defendants, but the decision will be made in the judicial court,” Levinson said. “No one should confuse this with the important legal issues that need to be resolved when this matter goes to court.”
Gascón acknowledged that prosecutors in the district attorney’s office disagreed about whether the brothers should be re-sentenced and eventually released.
He said he planned to speak within the next 10 days to the public prosecutor handling the case and review the brothers’ prison files to confirm the family’s claims about their rehabilitation.
“I’m looking to make sure there’s no misconduct while they’re in prison. I want to see the steps they’ve taken to become a better person.”
Although Gascón said he is still considering whether to recommend re-sentencing, his public comments increasingly indicate he is open to it.
“We are still in the review process,” he said. “But, actually, after 35 years of good behavior, they are ready to reintegrate into society, I think that would be appropriate.”
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