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Menendez brothers case will ‘reach the right decision,’ LA district attorney says
Los Angeles district attorney Nathan Hochman joins ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ to discuss the latest news from the Menendez brothers case.
Convicted double murderer Erik Menendez, the younger of the Menendez brothers, dished on the “bullying and trauma” he’s seen over nearly three decades in California’s prison system in a rare interview on the “2 Angry Men Podcast.”
“Prison was hard for me,” Menendez told the hosts, TMZ’s Harvey Levin and his own attorney, Mark Geragos, speaking of his incarceration in past tense. “I faced a lot of bullying and trauma – it was a dangerous environment.”
Menendez and his brother, Joseph “Lyle” Mendnez, are both being held in California’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility on life sentences without the possibility of parole, but under a new Golden State law, they could see their sentences reduced at a hearing next month and ultimately achieve freedom.
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Lyle Menendez, left, and his brother Erik pictured in their most recent CDCR mugshots, taken on Oct. 10, 2024. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
“I was picked on, bullied, violently, and it was traumatic,” he said, noting that such treatment is common for many inmates who are not involved with prison gangs.
“Prison can be hard, and there’s a lot of suffering in prison,” he said.
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Menendez, who alongside his brother was convicted of the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, has been praised for his good behavior over the past three decades behind bars. He said he did his best to avoid fighting back or engaging with aggressive prisoners.
“I was separated from Lyle, and I remember the day that I was told Lyle just got assaulted and got his jaw broken…I’m thinking he’s over there, I’m going through this over here, and at least we could protect each other, maybe, if we were together. We were not even allowed to be together.”
An undated photo of the Menendez family as it appears on screen during a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, on Sunday, June 2, 2024. The brothers Lyle and Erik were convicted of fatally shooting both of their parents in 1989. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
The brothers, who were sentenced to life without parole in 1996, were finally transferred to the same facility in 2018.
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Conditions have improved over time, he added.
“I believe that [the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] is doing their best, and I want to work with them. I know Lyle is, at really changing that culture today,” he said. “But 25 years ago, it was an even darker, more dangerous place.”
Menendez brothers, Erik, left, and Lyle on the steps of their Beverly Hills home in November 1989. (Ronald L. Soble/Los Angeles Times)
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Lyle Menendez, in the same podcast episode, discussed his involvement in a prison-based green space project that he said he would still return to work on if granted release.
They exhausted all potential appeals in 2005, Geragos has said previously, and until a new California law went into effect they had no hope of ever achieving freedom, yet they continued to show good behavior and keep out of trouble behind bars.
The brothers are scheduled for resentencing hearings on March 20 and 21 in Los Angeles. The hearings have been postponed multiple times, first after the former Los Angeles District Attorney pushing for their release lost his re-election campaign, and again after wildfires tore through LA.
“My brother and I are cautiously hopeful,” Lyle Menendez told Levin near the end of the episode. “We’re in prayer with our family, and we’re hopeful, and we’re just trying not to go a little crazy in the interim.”
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Erik Menendez (C) and his brother Lyle (L) are pictured on Aug. 12, 1991 in Beverly Hills. They were convicted of killing their parents, Jose and Mary Louise Menendez of Beverly Hills, Calif. (MIKE NELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
The brothers have a separate habeas petition making its way through the courts that could also result in their freedom, arguing that new evidence bolsters their self-defense claim.
On Aug. 20, 1989, they snuck up behind their parents, Jose Menendez and Mary “Kitty” Menendez, from behind with shotguns and killed them both in their Beverly Hills living room. The brothers have argued that they did it in self-defense, claiming their father was going to kill them when they threatened to expose him as a child molester.
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While about two dozen relatives have forgiven them and are publicly supporting their release, their mother’s brother is vehemently opposed and previously told Fox News Digital through his attorneys that he believes the motive was greed.
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After killing their parents, the brothers went on a $700,000 spending spree that included luxury cars, Rolex watches and even a restaurant.