Twenty members of the Menendez family will meet Friday with Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman to urge him to consider “fair and just resentencing” for Erik and Lyle Menendez in light of their “abuse, trauma, and demonstrated rehabilitation over the last 35 years.”
The Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition, which includes relatives of the incarcerated brothers, issued the following statement ahead of their scheduled meeting:
“As we prepare to meet with DA Hochman, our family is hopeful for an open and fair discussion. Despite the abuse they endured as children and the unfairness of their current sentence, Erik and Lyle Menendez have spent the last three decades taking responsibility for their actions and contributing positively to their community through leadership and rehabilitation.
During our meeting with DA Hochman, we look forward to sharing our perspective on Erik and Lyle’s immense personal growth over the last 35 years and the ways in which we plan to support them in their next chapters. We hope that this meeting will put us a step closer to spending next Christmas reunited as a family.”
Erik and Lyle are serving life sentences for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
New evidence that supports the brothers’ allegations of sexual abuse, including an additional victim and a letter written by Erik before the killings, were detailed in the 2023 documentary “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” and Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” series, which premiered in September.
A public wave of support for the brothers following “Monsters,” which included statements from celebrities Kim Kardashian and Rosie O’Donnell, was boosted by former Los Angeles D.A. George Gascón to begin the resentencing process and to petition California’s Governor Gavin Newsom to grant clemency.
Both legal avenues have been stalled with the election of Hochman, who campaigned on reversing many of Gascón’s more liberal policies. Hochman has stated he will handle each brother’s case separately.
Per the coalition’s statement, the majority of the family is “united in their support for a resentencing process that reflects Erik and Lyle’s abuse, trauma, and demonstrated rehabilitation over the last 35 years.”
However, at least one family member, Milton Andersen the brother of Kitty Menendez, is opposed to the brothers’ early release.
In a recent letter to Hochman, Menendez family lawyer Bryan Freedman expressed concern that the new D.A’s process “has been unfair.”
Freedman added that “instead of wanting to meet with the victim’s family members that can share their own personal experiences of years watching and speaking directly with Lyle and Erik, you chose to meet with Milton Anderson’s attorney first … It does not make any sense to my client.”