LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón instructed NBC News on Wednesday he hopes to decide inside 10 days about whether or not to advocate resentencing for the Menendez brothers — and that, if he does, it’s potential they might be out of jail by the tip of the yr.
“It can be as much as the courtroom to resolve which manner they need to go, however it’s potential they might be,” Gascón stated in an interview on the Los Angeles Hall of Justice shortly after a information convention by Menendez relations, who’re calling for the brothers’ launch.
“If the truth is they’ve rehabilitated as we’re being instructed, which is what we’re reviewing, then I don’t imagine they need to spend the remainder of their life in jail,” he added.
Erik and Lyle Menendez are serving life sentences with out parole for the 1989 shotgun slayings of their dad and mom, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, at their Beverly Hills dwelling.
More than a dozen kin of the brothers argue that not solely have they served their time behind bars however that the unique case didn’t correctly weigh their allegations that their father sexually and bodily abused them.
“If Lyle and Erik’s case had been heard as we speak, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there isn’t a doubt in my thoughts that their sentencing would have been very completely different,” Anamaria Baralt, José Menendez’s niece, instructed reporters Wednesday.
Gascón stated that whereas he’s nonetheless reviewing proof, based mostly on what he has seen to date, he agrees with these relations and in addition believes the brothers’ claims that they had been molested.
“I believe that there’s a sure degree of proof that factors out that there have been a variety of issues within the family,” he stated.
The brothers had been first tried collectively in 1993, however the jury deadlocked. Prosecutors retried them in 1995, when a choose deemed many of the sexual abuse claims inadmissible, with prosecutors convincing jurors that they killed their dad and mom to inherit cash and went on a spending spree after the murders.
But final yr, the brothers offered what they stated was new proof backing their allegations of sexual abuse, together with a letter that one of many brothers is alleged to have despatched to a cousin months earlier than the murders about his father. In it, he wrote, “I’ve been attempting to keep away from dad … each night time, I keep up pondering he would possibly are available.”
Roy Rossello, a former member of the band Menudo, additionally spoke out within the Peacock documentary collection “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” alleging he was additionally raped by José Menendez. Peacock is owned by NBCUniversal, the guardian firm of NBC News.
Not all of the household believes the brothers.
Kathy Cady, who’s representing Milton Andersen, Kitty Menendez’s, stated in an interview that her consumer doesn’t imagine his nephews had been molested and that they had been motivated by greed.
“Even ought to these allegations have been true, it doesn’t excuse what they did to their dad and mom, and it doesn’t excuse the murders that they dedicated,” Cady stated. “And once more, the timing that they solely dedicated the murders after they realized that they had been going to be taken out of the desire would appear to recommend in any other case.”
Gascón, who polls present is trailing in his bid to be re-elected, just lately started talking publicly about his workplace’s position within the case because it evaluations the brand new proof.
The case has been getting renewed consideration after the discharge of the favored Netflix collection “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which dramatizes their story.
Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor who makes a speciality of prison instances, stated that regardless of appreciable public curiosity within the case, their launch is under no circumstances assured.
“The courtroom of public opinion can present some ethical assist for the defendants, however it’s within the judicial courtroom the place the choice can be made,” Levenson stated. “Nobody ought to confuse this with important authorized points that should be resolved when this goes to courtroom.”
Gascón acknowledged prosecutors within the DA’s workplace differ about whether or not the brothers ought to be resentenced and in the end launched.
He stated that over the following 10 days he plans to speak to the prosecutors dealing with the case and evaluation jail recordsdata on the brothers to corroborate the household’s claims that they’ve been rehabilitated.
“I’m seeking to guarantee that there was no misbehavior whereas they had been in jail. I need to see what steps they’ve taken as a way to grow to be a greater particular person,” he stated.
Although Gascón stated he’s nonetheless considering whether or not to advocate resentencing, his public feedback more and more recommend he’s open to it.
“We’re nonetheless within the evaluation course of,” he stated. “But if, the truth is, after 35 years of fine habits they’re able to be reintegrated in society, then I believe that that will be applicable.”