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 a resentencing for the Menendez brothers – and that if he does does, it’s possible they could be out of prison soon. the end of the year.
“It’s up to the court to decide which way they want to go, but it’s possible that’s the case,” Gascón said in an interview at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice shortly after a news conference by relatives of Menendez, who are calling for the brothers’ release.
“If they have indeed been rehabilitated as we are told, which we are assessing now, then I don’t believe they should spend the rest of their lives in prison,” he added.
Erik and Lyle Menendez are serving life sentences for the 1989 murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home.
More than a dozen relatives of the brothers claim that in addition to serving their time behind bars, the original case failed to properly weigh their allegations that their father sexually and physically abused them.
“If Lyle and Erik’s case were tried today, with the knowledge we now have about abuse and PTSD, I have no doubt that their sentencing would have been very different,” José Menendez’s niece, Anamaria Baralt, said. to reporters on Wednesday.
Gascón said that while he is still assessing 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 abused.
“I think there is some level of evidence to suggest there were a lot of problems in the household,” he said.
The brothers were tried together for the first time in 1993, but the jury deadlocked. Prosecutors tried them again in 1995, when a judge dismissed most of the sex abuse claims, with prosecutors convincing jurors that they had killed their parents to inherit money and were spending heavily after the killings.
But last year, the brothers presented new evidence to support their sexual abuse allegations, including a letter one of the brothers allegedly sent to a cousin months before his father’s murder. In it he wrote: “I’ve been trying to avoid Dad… every night I stay awake thinking he might come in.”
Roy Rossello, a former member of the band Menudo, also spoke out in the Peacock documentary series “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” claiming he was also raped by José Menendez. Peacock is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.
Not the entire family believes the brothers.
Kathy Cady, who represents Milton Andersen, of Kitty Menendez, said in an interview that her client does not believe his nephews were abused and that they were motivated by greed.
“Even if these allegations were true, it doesn’t excuse what they did to their parents, and it doesn’t excuse the murders they committed,” Cady said. “And again, the timing that they only committed the murders when they learned they were going to be taken out of the will seems to suggest otherwise.”
Gascón, who polls show him trailing in his bid for re-election, recently began speaking publicly about his office’s role in the case as it reviews the new evidence.
The case is receiving renewed attention following the release of the hit Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which dramatizes their story.
Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School who specializes in criminal cases, said that despite significant public interest in the case, their release is by no means assured.
“The court of public opinion can provide some moral support to the defendants, but it is the judicial tribunal where the decision will be made,” Levenson said. “No one should confuse this with important legal issues that will need to be resolved if this goes to trial.”
Gascón acknowledged that state prosecutors differ on whether the brothers should be resentenced and ultimately released.
He said he plans to spend the next 10 days talking to prosecutors handling the case and reviewing the brothers’ prison records to confirm the family’s claims that they have been rehabilitated.
“I want to make sure no wrongdoing occurred while they were in jail. I want to see what steps they have taken to become a better person,” he said.
Although Gascón said he is still considering whether to recommend a conviction, his public comments increasingly suggest he is open to it.
“We are still in the review process,” he said. “But if after 35 years of good behavior they are actually ready to be reintegrated into society, then I think that would be appropriate.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
