Atty, Los Angeles County. Nathan Hochman’s move to stymie a bid for freedom from Eric and Lyle Menendez is motivated by political self-interest, ignoring the facts of the case, the brothers’ lawyers argue in a new court application.
Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón, sought responsiveness to his siblings in 1989 in the shotgun murder of his parents. Before losing to Hochman in the November election, Gascon asked the judge to withdraw Mendendes’ life sentence without the possibility of parole.
He urged them to be given to 50 years of life. They were youthful criminals 18 and 21, so when they shot and killed Jose and Kitty Menendez at their Beverly Hills home, res Tinsensing could qualify them for parole and lead to their freedom in 30 years of prison.
Since Hochman took over as district attorney, he opposed the brothers to go to a new trial and filed a motion last month to withdraw Gascon’s request for responsiveness.
Hochman said he even claimed that the murder was committed by the mafia when his brothers filed his allegations that they repeatedly lied about the crime. He questioned whether their claims of self-defense were valid. The siblings claim they are the subject of years of sexual and emotional abuse by their parents.
Hochman said the brothers had not demonstrated “full insight and acceptance of responsibility” for their crimes, and the previous prosecutor’s team ignored important violations of rules in prison.
The brothers’ lawyers, led by Mark Jelagos and Cliff Gardner, portray Hochman’s actions as motivated by politics rather than legal reasoning, as case law requires.
“The question here is whether the record indicates a decision to withdraw the request for restinning is based on “justice reasons,” they write.
They point to the reallocation of Hochman, Nancy Zaberge and Brock Lansford, two prosecutors who worked with Gascon in the Menendez move and recommended that the brothers be released. Hochman has appointed private attorney Kathy Caddy as head of the DA’s victim services division. Caddy represented only Menendez’s relatives to express his opposition to resentment to his brother. Her client, Milton Anderson, was the brother of Kitty Menendez and later passed away.
The defense attorney says Hockman is trying to rewrite history.
“The withdrawal claim contains serious facts and legal errors,” the lawyer wrote.
Defence team Hochman said “in the aftermath of crime, and even the 1993 and 1996 trials, continued to focus on falsehood (brothers).” The defense admits that the pair “stroke to lie and create evidence,” but 30 years later, they’ve come closer to the crime.
In 1989, the Menendez brothers bought a shotgun with cash, stepped into their Beverly Hills mansion, shooting their parents while watching a movie in the family’s living room. Jose Menendez was hit five times, while Kitty Menendez raw across the floor and injured him. Prosecutors on trial argued that the murder was motivated by millions of dollars of inheritance, but the defense argued that it was a form of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by his father.
The allegations to withdraw Hochman’s resententenging request mean that Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, “pose an unfair risk of danger to the community,” their lawyers say, but “doesn’t mention that they have achieved the lowest felony risk assessment score – Zero.” They further say that the rules violations mentioned by the DA are trivial and have been made in prison over decades.
Hochman cited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to deny Silhan Silhan parole in the 1968 murder of Robert F. Kennedy, saying that the Menendez brothers’ lack of insight into crime was comparable to RFK’s killers.
However, Geragos and his brother’s legal team say Silhan has been flip-floping about his guilt for many years and claims he is innocent while in prison. But Menendez has owned the crime since their conviction, their lawyers said, citing a quote in a 1996 interview with Barbara Walters.
The brothers’ lawyers repeatedly pointed out that around 30 members of the family support their release, claiming that Hochman misunderstood what the two trials of Eric and Lyle Menendez are, “both the prosecution and the defense have admitted that the issue of sexual abuse is central to the entire case.”
Ententenging is just one of three routes that siblings seek freedom. They are pursuing a new trial, citing new evidence. A letter written to his cousin by one of them before the murder detailing the abuse, and an allegation by another man who said he was sexually abused by Jose Menendez, a former member of the boy band Menudo.
They are also pursuing tolerance with Newsom, who directed the State Parole Board to begin a risk assessment of whether the Menendez brothers pose an irrational risk to the public if released. It will be the first step in their bid for tolerance.
He said that if the brothers were tolerated and ultimately received a parole hearing, he would oppose their release.
