California | Judge in LA delays until January decision on resentencing Menendez brothers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Monday delayed until January his decision on whether to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion 35 years ago, squashing their family’s hope the brothers would be released and home for the holidays.

Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said at the hearing in Los Angeles that he needed time to review 17 boxes of documents and give a new district attorney in Los Angeles County time to weigh in on the case.

“I’m not ready to go forward,” Jesic said, setting the hearing for the resentencing request for Jan. 30 instead of Dec. 11 as originally planned.

The brothers were scheduled to be seen in court for the first time in decades at the hearing but technical problems prevented them from appearing virtually from a San Diego prison. They were found guilty of murdering Jose and Kitty Menendez in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

While their defense attorneys argued at trial that they had been sexually abused by their father, prosecutors denied that and accused them of killing their parents for money. In the years that followed, they repeatedly appealed their convictions without success.

Now, at 53 and 56, Erik and Lyle Menendez are making a new bid for freedom. Their lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition — a request for a court to examine whether someone is being lawfully detained — in May 2023, asking a judge to consider new evidence of their father’s sexual abuse. The brothers are being held at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.

Jesic allowed the brothers’ two aunts to take the stand on Monday after their attorney argued that it was difficult for them to travel for the hearing.

Joan Andersen VanderMolen, Kitty Menendez’s sister who turns 93 on Tuesday, and Teresita Baralt, Jose’s older sister who is 85, asked for their release, saying 35 years was a long time for the brothers after suffering abuse as children. Andersen VanderMolen had said last month that she had hoped her nephews would be released and home for her birthday or the holidays.

Baralt noted that she was close to Jose and lived for years across the street from him and Kitty, who Baralt described as her best friend.

“We miss those who are gone tremendously,” Baralt testified through tears. “But we miss the kids too.”

Both aunts said they had kept in contact with the brothers, though they had not seen them in person for years.

The hearing lasted less than an hour. Mark Geragos, an attorney for the brothers, started to address the media outside the courthouse but he cut it short and walked off as journalists crowded him.

The recent releases of the Netflix drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and the documentary “The Menendez Brothers” in 2024 brought renewed attention to their plight.

Rose Castillo, a 28-year-old true crime enthusiast, arrived from Miami five minutes too late to enter the lottery and win one of the few seats offered to the public to attend the hearing, but glimpsed the brothers’ family members before they entered the courthouse.

“That was crazy,” Castillo said.

A courthouse bailiff told people to stop taking pictures of the relatives as they waited in the hallway before the hearing began.

Prosecutors recommended resentencing for the brothers last month, saying they have worked on redemption and rehabilitation and demonstrated good behavior inside prison.

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón asked for new sentences that could make them immediately eligible for parole.

The brothers’ extended family has said they deserve to be free after decades behind bars. Several family members have said that in today’s world — which is more aware of the impact of sexual abuse — the brothers would not have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.

Not all Menendez family members support resentencing. Attorneys for Milton Andersen, the 90-year-old brother of Kitty Menendez, filed a legal brief asking the court to keep the brothers’ original punishment. “They shot their mother, Kitty, reloading to ensure her death,” Andersen’s attorneys said in a statement last month. “The evidence remains overwhelmingly clear: the jury’s verdict was just, and the punishment fits the heinous crime.”

The new evidence includes a letter Erik Menendez wrote in 1988 to his uncle Andy Cano, describing the sexual abuse he had endured from his father. The brothers asked their lawyers about it after it was mentioned in a 2015 Barbara Walters television special. The lawyers hadn’t known of the letter and realized it had not been introduced at their trials, making it effectively new evidence that they say corroborates allegations that Erik was sexually abused by his father.

More new evidence emerged when Roy Rossello, a former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, recently came forward saying he had been drugged and raped by Jose Menendez when he was a teen in the 1980s. Menudo was signed under RCA Records, where Jose Menendez was chief operating officer.

Rossello spoke about his abuse in the Peacock docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” and provided a signed declaration to the brothers’ lawyers.

Had these two pieces of evidence been available during the brothers’ trial, prosecutors would not have been able to argue that there was no corroboration of sexual abuse, the petition states.

While clemency might be another pathway to freedom for the brothers, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that he won’t decide until incoming Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who takes office on Dec. 2, reviews the case.

Hochman, a Republican-turned-independent who unseated the progressive Gascón, said Jesic’s decision to delay the hearing will give him enough time to “review the extensive prison records, transcripts of two lengthy trials and voluminous exhibits, as well as consult with prosecutors, law enforcement, defense counsel and victim family members.”

Source: The Associated Press, Jaimie Ding, November 26, 2024

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