Kim Kardashian supported the Menendez brothers in a personal essay she shared with NBC News on Thursday, writing: they are not monsters. ”
Kardashian, a reality TV star and entrepreneur, has used her celebrity platform to advocate for inmates on criminal justice issues, but she has accused Lyle and Eric Menendez of unfair treatment by prosecutors and the media. I believe I received it. The brothers, who were convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, in their home in Beverly Hills, California, were “convicted before their trial even began,” she wrote.
The Los Angeles County district attorney announced Thursday that the department will review evidence to determine whether the brothers should be exonerated and possibly released, officials said Thursday.
Eric Menendez was 18 and Lyle Menendez was 21 when their parents were shot and killed in 1989.
“My hope is that Eric and Lyle Menendez’s life sentences will be reconsidered,” Kardashian says.
“We owe it to these young boys who lost their childhoods, who never had the chance to be heard, to be helped, to be saved,” she added.
The Los Angeles County district attorney will be required to review the evidence to determine whether the brothers should be released on indignation, officials announced Thursday.
The brothers’ case has received renewed attention with the Netflix biographical series “Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez,” and their lives are the subject of an upcoming documentary on Netflix, “The Menendez Brothers.” There is.
Kardashian met the brothers last month when she spoke to inmates about prison reform at a California state prison near San Diego. She was joined by actor Cooper Koch, who plays Eric Menendez in the Netflix series.
Eric Menendez, now 53, previously slammed the Netflix drama’s portrayal of his and his brother’s lives as “blatant lies,” saying that the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, is currently 56-year-old Lyle. They accused him of intentionally creating a caricature of Menendez.
At their first televised trial in 1993, the brothers said they acted in self-defense out of fear and long-term trauma after years of sexual abuse by their father, a record company executive. However, prosecutors claimed that they murdered their parents in order to inherit the property and continued to spend extravagantly.
The first trial ended in a hung jury. When the brothers were retried together in 1995, most of their abuse charges were deemed inadmissible in court. They were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In her essay, Kardashian acknowledged that her brother’s crime was “unforgivable” and that his actions after the murder were also inexcusable.
But at the time, she argues, there were also limited resources for victims of sexual abuse, especially boys.
“We do not believe that imprisoning them for the rest of their lives is an appropriate punishment for this complex case. If this crime had been committed and tried today, the outcome would have been dramatically different. I guess so,” she wrote.
The brothers’ lawyers are seeking to challenge their imprisonment based on evidence not known at trial.
Kardashian has been a vocal advocate for judicial reform. In April, she joined Vice President Kamala Harris for a roundtable at the White House with four people President Joe Biden pardoned for nonviolent drug offenses earlier this week.
Kardashian visited the White House several times under former President Donald Trump’s administration, and in 2018 lobbied for the release of Alice Marie Johnson, who is serving a life sentence for a non-violent drug offense. went. President Trump commuted Johnson’s sentence days after the meeting.
In 2019, Kardashian said she was studying for a law degree.
