Two Los Angeles Brothers People convicted of plotting the mass murder of their parents and then spending recklessly on the proceeds could soon be released from prison if they succeed in their bid for a commutation of their sentence for manslaughter.
Joseph Menendez, who goes by his middle name, Lyle, and his brother, Erik, broke into their parents’ Beverly Hills home in 1989 and gunned them down.
She accused her father, Jose Menendez, of sexual and physical abuse. He fired so many rounds that one of them had to retrieve another from his car before he could return and fire another. kill shot His mother, Mary “Kitty” Menendez.
Lyle Menendez, who with brother shot and killed parents, plans life after prison amid new appeal
An undated photo of the Menendez family is shown on a screen during a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 2, 2024. Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of murdering their parents in the 1989 shootings. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
The brothers claimed they feared their father would kill them because he had warned them they would expose his deviant behavior. After their parents’ murder, they began spending lavishly on luxury items and investments, but investigators focused on them after Eric confessed to his therapist.
They were both convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but recently they were released appealed against his sentence And they are seeking a sentence reduction under a new California law that gives the district attorney the power to recommend a re-sentencing.
And he has the support of more than two dozen family members who have signed a letter to the judge urging him to re-sentence him.
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An old photo shows Lyle and Erik Menendez wearing prison jumpsuits during their murder trial in Los Angeles. (Ted Socci/Sigma via Getty Images)
Lawyers for the brothers have argued they should have been convicted not murder but manslaughterIf that were the case he would probably have been released from prison already.
With the help of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, they may soon be eligible for parole, say current and former members of his office who have spoken on their behalf.
Gascón’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the Menendez brothers’ case or the appointment of former public prosecutors as prosecutors.
During Gascón’s controversial tenure as county D.A., several members of his office opposed what they called pro-criminal policies, some of which they argue are illegal in nearly two dozen whistleblower retaliation lawsuits filed against Los Angeles County.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón speaks during a press conference at the Hall of Justice in Los Angeles on June 21, 2022. (Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
The district attorney has been an outspoken critic of the death penalty and the imposition of life imprisonment without parole, though he has changed his policy against seeking the death penalty in certain circumstances, including for cop killers, serial killers, and people who kill for financial gain.
But he has also hired former state prosecutors to argue for the state in resentencing hearings. His office also fired a career prosecutor who had spoken out about his resentencing policies, according to his retaliatory lawsuit.
“I was retaliated against within 24 hours of speaking to them and I was sent away to deal with misdemeanors after being in the office for 20 years,” said Mindy Paige, who later left the DA’s office and has a pending retaliation suit against her. “After I was retaliated against, I was actually replaced with a public defender.”
He said if there was an ideological motive behind his replacement, it could result in lawyers from both sides “arguing the same thing.”
This 1992 photo shows double murder accused Erik (right) and Lyle Menendez appearing in court in Los Angeles. (Mike Nelson/AFP via Getty Images)
“The public defender and the ‘DA,’ who used to be the public defender, there is no one to represent the victims in these cases,” he said.
In another incident, a deputy in Gascón’s office who had served as a public advocate for several years referred to himself as a “defender,” according to a transcript of the proceedings viewed by Fox News Digital.
“It was one of the most shocking things I’ve ever seen,” said John Colello, another deputy district attorney in the courtroom. Speaking for himself, he said some of the former public defenders in these cases “are deputy district attorneys in name only.”
Watch Fox Nation’s ‘Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains’
The photo shows a letter allegedly written by Erik Menendez and sent to his cousin Andy Cano eight months before the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez, describing the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. Lawyers for the brothers have argued that the letter is evidence their convictions should be overturned. (California Superior Court, Los Angeles County)
“Our taxpayers are paying these bills; they’re paying the salaries of these so-called prosecutors, but they’re really defense attorneys, and they’re going to court to get violent offenders released from prison early,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
Dan Kuperberg, a former defense attorney turned prosecutor, was seeking a reduction in the sentence of 73-year-old Stephen Cole. convicted murderer,
Cole was sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Mary Ann Mahoney in 1988. He covered her in gasoline and set her on fire while she lay in bed. Although California no longer executes people on death row, Gascón’s office requested the sentence be reduced to life imprisonment.
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During the trial, Cole showed no remorse and testified that he had told Mahoney, “You bastard, I hope you burn in hell,” and that he had watched her run away in flames.
She languished in agony for 11 days and then died. Four years later, he told the jury he still hated her.
The judge said some of Cole’s relatives also supported the death penalty, and that he had a history of domestic violence before the killing.
“The facts of this case are extremely barbaric,” the judge said.
Colello said he denied the request for a re-sentencing, and his denial was upheld on appeal.
There are several ways a prisoner can be released following a sentence reduction.
In a case like Cole’s, reducing the death sentence to life imprisonment could be a step toward additional reductions in the future.
“The first step is they reduce it to LWOP,” Colello said, using the abbreviation for life imprisonment without parole. “The second step is they try to change life imprisonment without parole to indeterminate life imprisonment, like 58 to life imprisonment, so they can go on TV and say they still have these long sentences.”
Erik Menendez (left) and his brother Lyle stand in front of their Beverly Hills home in this undated photo. (Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
But because of California’s rules for compassionate release, old-age parole and other similar laws, even a sentence that looks heavy on paper can make an inmate immediately eligible for parole.
“When you change a sentence from LWOP to some other term, you have all these other mechanisms that come into play,” he said. “For example, you have elderly parole: If someone has served 20 years of a sentence, and now they’re 50 or older, they’re eligible for parole. If they were a youthful offender, meaning they were under 26 at the time of the crime … they’re now eligible for parole when they’ve served 25 years of their sentence.”
He said that a person sentenced to death or serving life imprisonment without parole will not have the right to compassionate release on medical grounds. But a person serving a sentence of 100 years to life imprisonment will have this right.
Lyle (left) is now 56. Erik (right) is now 53, according to California prison records. (California Department of Corrections)
The Menendez brothers are now 50. They were 21 and 18 at the time of the killings.
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The brothers aren’t the only ones to accuse their father of abuse.
Roy Rossello, a former member of the boy band Menudo, alleged last year that Jose Menendez, then an executive at RCA Records,… molested her In the early 1980s.
Fox News’s Christina Coulter and Laura Carrion contributed to this report.
