The Menendez brothers’ freedom appeal for release could be face unexpected challenges after the recent elections.
Last month, LA County District Attorney George Gascón announced his recommendation that the Menendez brothers, who fatally shot their parents in 1989, be resentenced and immediately eligible for parole after spending 35 years behind bars.
However, on Tuesday (November 5), their potential path to freedom hit a roadblock after Gascón lost his re-election to former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hochman.
Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, has now revealed that he wants to review Lyle and Erik’s high-profile case before proceeding.
“Before I can make any decision about the Menendez brothers’ case, I will need to become thoroughly familiar with the relevant facts, the evidence, and the law,” he said in a statement, according to The Independent.
“I will have to review the confidential prison files for each brother, the transcripts from both trials, and speak to the prosecutors, law enforcement, defense counsel, and the victims’ family members,” he continued.
Hochman will take office on December 2, which is nine days before the brothers’ scheduled hearing. “If for some reason I need additional time, I will ask the court for that time,” he added.
If a judge agrees with Gascón’s recommendation, Erik and Lyle’s new sentence would change from life without parole to 50 years to life – 25 years for each murder – because they were under 26 years old at the time of the crimes.
After the brutal 1989 murder, Erik and Lyle, who were 19 and 22 at the time, evaded detention for many months until a confession to their therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel, revealed the truth and led to their arrest.
They testified during their court proceedings that they suffered years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of their late mom Mary Louise (known as Kitty) Menendez, 47, and dad José Menendez, 45, saying they murdered them out of self-defense.
Both men were found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in March 1996.
The chilling case has been spotlighted in the second season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Since its release, 24 members of Lyle and Erik’s family have issued a scathing statement blasting the director for the show’s “grotesque shockudrama”.
They also described the series as “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episode nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations”.
Murphy hit back at the criticism, saying the Menendez brothers “should be sending me flowers” because the series brought more attention to their case than they’ve had in 30 years.
