The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has revealed that he will make a decision by the end of the week on whether to release the Menendez brothers.
George Gascon told it CNN he is accelerating the process of a possible revenge amid increased public interest in the case.
Erik and Lyle Menendez spent 34 years in prison for the 1989 murder of their parents.
However, new evidence recently emerged supporting the brothers’ claims that they were sexually abused by their father, Jose Menendez, prompting a reassessment of the case.
The infamous murders have been brought back into the spotlight in part thanks to a Netflix dramatization and a documentary about Jose’s violent history of their father.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has revealed that he will make a decision by the end of the week on whether to release the Menendez brothers
Gascón admitted that there was “certainly some implicit bias that occurred at the time that may have had an impact on the way the case was perceived and presented to the jury” at the time of sentencing.
He explained today that his office is divided on whether there should be a recidivism.
“I have a group of people, including some who were involved in the original trial, who firmly believe they should spend the rest of their lives in prison and that they were not molested,” he said.
“I have other people in the office who think they have probably been abused and they deserve some relief.”
The brothers were convicted of first-degree murder for shooting their parents Jose and Kitty in their Beverly Hills home.
Prosecutors argued that the men killed their parents to obtain their $14 million inheritance and denied that Jose had abused his sons.
However, Mendezes’ defense team has now filed a petition claiming that new evidence has emerged that refutes this position.
This includes a letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin detailing the abuse he suffered before the murder, as well as the claims of former boy band member Roy Rosselló who claims he was also raped by Jose.
George Gascón admitted there was ‘certainly implicit bias’ around the time the brothers were convicted in 1996
Jose and Kitty (pictured) were murdered in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989
Erik Menendez wrote a letter to his cousin, Andy Cano, alluding to severe and long-term abuse by his father Jose
Another way the brothers could be released is that California law provides for the early release of long-term prisoners who are not considered a threat to the public.
“We have been looking at these cases for over a year,” Gascón added. “But given the public attention, I have decided to expedite the matter, and I will do so.”
The Menendez brothers were convicted of murdering their parents in 1996 after their first trial was overturned.
The brothers have never denied killing their parents by shooting them 14 times with 12-gauge shotguns in their million-dollar home in August 1989, when they were just 18 and 21.
But Lyle and Erik, now 53 and 56 years old, claimed they acted in self-defense. They said they were victims of lifelong sexual abuse by their father, a high-flying businessman who worked in various industries.
Gascón said the newly released letter, written by Erik months before the murders, “probably” should have been entered as evidence in the original trial.
“It will be up to a jury to determine the probative value of that letter,” he added.
The siblings shot and killed their mother Kitty, a socialite, and father Jose Menendez, a Cuban immigrant who later took on an executive role in the entertainment industry.
The brothers alleged that they suffered years of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of their father, and that he forced them to perform sex acts on their mother.
This was the scene outside the Menendez family’s Beverly Hills mansion when police arrived on August 20, 1989.
The letter, written to his cousin Andy Cano, reads: “I’ve been trying to avoid Dad. It still happens Andy, but it’s worse for me now. I can’t explain it.
‘He’s so overweight that I just can’t bear to see him. I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy.”
Prosecutors argued at their second trial that the abuse had not occurred, and the judge overseeing the trial refused to allow much of the defense’s evidence about sexual abuse to be presented.
But Cano, who died in 2003, testified that Erik told him about his father’s abuse at age 13.
His mother found the letter nine years ago and it was included in a 2023 petition to investigate whether the brothers were wrongfully imprisoned.