The main prosecutor of Los Angeles rejected an offer from Erik and Lyle Menéndez to challenge their murder sentences, telling journalists on Friday that the evidence cited by the brothers did not meet the standards required for a judge to order a new trial.
Los Angeles County District Prosecutor, Nathan Hochman, said prosecutors had presented an answer on Friday that opposed a petition presented by the brothers in May 2023 who was looking for a new trial.
A letter that the Brothers’ lawyer has previously described as critical evidence in the petition: he said he confirms that Erik’s account that his father was sexually bothering him in the months before the 1989 murders, he did not seem credible, he said Hochman.
The brothers have described the murders in their home of Beverly Hills on the night of August 20, 1989, as self -defense. They said they triggered his parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, after Lyle faced his father for his continuous abuse of Erik and threatened to expose the entertainment company executive.
Lyle has said that his father responded with what he saw as a threat.
In the petition, Erik said he wrote the letter to his cousin in December 1988, nine months before the murders. But the document, said Hochman, is a photocopy without date.
“We have asked for the original copy,” he said. “We have not presented an original or an envelope with a matasor.”
Hochman added that Erik and the cousin testified about Erik’s abuse in the trial and both said that the last time they spoke was six years before the murders, said Hochman.
He said he was “inconceivable” and “challenges common sense” to believe that they discussed abuse without raising the matter in the trial.
“If they had evidence that sexual abuse had communicated not only six years before the events, but nine months before the murders of 1989, it would have come out absolutely during one or both testimonies,” said Hochman.
The cousin, said Hochman, could not confirm the authenticity of the letter because he died in 2003.
Another possible evidence included in the petition is a statement by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boys band. In the document, Rossello claimed that José Menéndez, who was working for RCA, the band’s record label, sexually assaulted him while the band was in the United States.
The statements were the subject of a real turkey series 2023, “Menéndez + often: betrayed Boys”.
But in Friday’s presentation, prosecutors argued that the claim was “inadmissible, irrelevant and lacks credibility.”
Citing the California Court of Appeals, they pointed out that “the Court of First Instance declared that the main issue was the mental state of the accused at the time of the murder and the relevant previous incident could have had in the defendants.”
The Menéndez brothers did not find out about Rossello’s accusations until more than three decades after the murders, making the evidence inadmissible, according to the presentation.
In a statement on Friday, Erik and Lyle family members who are pressing for the liberation of the brothers said they were “deeply disappointed” by the prosecutor’s comments, who said that “he effectively broke new evidence and discredited the trauma that They experienced. “
“Not only is he discarding the experiences of Erik and Lyle, he is silencing the survivors everywhere who know what it is not to be believed, ignored and retraumatized by a system designed to protect them.”
Prosecutors have previously played the abuse statements of the brothers, calling them false and saying that the murders were of cold blood and financially motivated.
Both brothers testified about the alleged abuse in their televised trial in 1993. When a jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, a judge declared a null trial. During his new trial, Lyle did not testify and the judge, citing a ruling from the Superior Court of California, prevented them from claiming self -defense.
The brothers were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of probation.
Last October, the former District Prosecutor of the Los Angeles County, George Gascón, said he supported a request to resent the brothers 50 years of life imprisonment, a measure that could make them eligible for probable freedom immediately if they approve it A judge.
Hochman said Friday that his office is still reviewing the request, but he hopes to make a decision in the next two weeks. A two -day hearing on the matter is scheduled for March.
In an interview with “Dateline”, Gascón acknowledged that his crimes were brutal and premeditated, but said the brothers have been “exceptional prisoners” while they are imprisoned and no longer represent a risk of public security.
Many of the relatives of the brothers have publicly supported Gascón’s efforts, and one says at an October press conference that his family is “united in hope and gratitude.”
Kitty’s brother, Milton Andersen, has opposed his release. In a letter to Gascón, a lawyer from Andersen said that the reason for the brothers in the murder was “pure greed.”
Gascón also said that it supports clemency for the brothers, which would be granted by the governor of California Gavin Newsom. Newsom has not yet intervened in the matter.
