Prosecutor Expected to Seek Resentencing of Menendez Brothers

A request from George Gascón, the district attorney for Los Angeles County, could lead to the brothers being released from prison, decades after they were convicted of murdering their parents.

The Los Angeles County prosecutor is expected to request on Thursday the resentencing of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in 1989, according to a person familiar with the prosecutor’s decision. That step could lead to the brothers’ freedom from prison.

The district attorney, George Gascón, has scheduled a news conference on Thursday afternoon to announce his decision.

During their trial, which was televised, the brothers said they had been sexually molested by their father and had feared for their lives. At the time, their claims were met with widespread skepticism, but now they are seen by Mr. Gascón as credible enough to warrant reconsideration by the court.

The move by the office that originally prosecuted the case to seek a resentencing could pave the way for the brothers, who are currently serving sentences of life without parole in a prison near San Diego, to walk free.

While the district attorney’s recommendation will carry weight, it is ultimately up to a judge to decide the brothers’ future.

The case drew renewed attention this year after Netflix released a docudrama about it, and later a documentary in which the brothers discussed the case at length in prison interviews.

The rare request for resentencing comes at an urgent political moment for Mr. Gascón, a Democrat who is struggling to win re-election against a conservative challenger running as an independent in the left-leaning county.

Laurie L. Levenson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who frequently analyzed the Menendez case for media outlets in the 1990s, said that “the most interesting question for Gascón” is “why this case was given priority at this time.”

The murders grabbed the nation’s attention in 1989 for their lurid nature and the wealthy milieu in which they were committed. The brothers’ initial trial in the early 1990s was one of the first to be televised to a national audience, a forerunner of the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, also in Los Angeles County.

The Menendez brothers had separate juries in their first trial, and a judge declared a mistrial after both juries had failed to reach unanimous verdicts, following weeks of deliberations. When the brothers were tried again — this time without TV cameras present — they were both convicted in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Erik Menendez was 18 and his brother, Lyle, was 21 at the time of the murders.

At trial, prosecutors portrayed the brothers as unrepentant killers who murdered their parents with shotguns to get their hands on the family’s assets, valued at the time at $14 million (about $32 million in today’s dollars). A spending spree by the brothers in the months between the murders and their arrest, in which they bought a Porsche car, a Rolex watch and a restaurant in Princeton, N.J., was presented as evidence to support that theory.

The brothers’ defense team argued that they had been sexually abused by their father, Jose Menendez, and that their mother, Kitty Menendez, knew about it. The lawyers said the brothers killed their parents because they feared for their lives. The brothers had confronted their parents about the abuse, the lawyers said, and were worried that their parents would kill them to prevent the family’s secrets from becoming public.

Mr. Gascón announced earlier this month that his office was reviewing the case. “It’s important to recognize that both men and women can be victims of sexual abuse,” he said.

Mark Geragos, a lawyer for the brothers, said: “If they were the Menendez sisters, they would not be in custody. We have evolved. It is time.”

During the first trial, which ended in a mistrial in 1994, evidence was admitted supporting the brothers’ contention that they had been abused. But in the second trial, the judge excluded much of that evidence — and what was dismissed at the time by some legal experts as the brothers’ “abuse excuse” — and the brothers were convicted.

“If Lyle and Erik’s case were heard today, with the understanding we now have about abuse and PTSD, there is no doubt in my mind that their sentencing would have been very different,” Anamaria Baralt, a cousin of the brothers, said at a recent news conference held by the family.

New evidence has come to light in recent years. A letter written by Erik Menendez months before the murders, in which he described the sexual abuse to a cousin, was brought forward by Robert Rand, a journalist who has covered the case for years and has written a book about it. In addition, a 2023 documentary series on the Peacock streaming service reported allegations that Jose, a wealthy music executive, had sexually abused Roy Rosselló, a member of the boy band Menudo.

The brothers, their legal team and their extended family believe that if the evidence and testimony about the abuse been admitted at the second trial, it would have been seen as a mitigating factor, and the brothers would have been found guilty of manslaughter rather than first-degree murder.

Nery Ynclan, one of the journalists whose reporting powered the Peacock series, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” said that lawyers for years cautioned against becoming too hopeful about the brothers ever being freed.

“Today is a victory for Lyle, Erik and Roy,” she said, “three men who found a way to process the pain of their horrendous childhoods by helping others deal with their traumas.”

The Menendez brothers have attracted enormous support on social media, where young people who were not born at the time of the murders have demanded their release.

Many relatives of the brothers have rallied to their side, but the family is not fully united. Milton Andersen, Kitty’s brother, believes his nephews should remain in prison. In a recent statement, Mr. Andersen, 90, said he had retained a lawyer to oppose the brothers’ release.

“Mr. Andersen was really feeling like his voice was not being heard,” said Kathy Cady, a lawyer representing Mr. Andersen pro bono. “Essentially what he is wanting is just to make sure that he is kept up to date, and that he doesn’t have to learn things from the media.”

The district attorney’s resentencing petition includes several letters commending the brothers for their work in prison as hospice aides to help sick inmates; for running Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and meditation groups for inmates; and for completing college courses. There are two letters in the packet from corrections officers, in favor of the resentencing and release of the brothers.

Victor H. Cortes, an official at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where the brothers are incarcerated, wrote a letter in support of Lyle Menendez that is part of the petition for resentencing.

“It is exceedingly rare to encounter an individual who, despite facing a life sentence without the possibility of parole, has dedicated himself to personal growth, the betterment of his fellow inmates, and overall stability of the prison environment,” Mr. Cortes wrote.