Legal expert reacts to historic move in Menendez brothers case
Defense attorney David Gelman says Los Angeles voters got what they asked for after District Attorney George Gascon announced he will support releasing the murderous Menendez brothers from prison despite sentences of life without parole.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon threw a "Hail Mary" on Thursday when he announced that he would be recommending that the Menendez brothers be re-sentenced for the 1989 murder of their parents as he fights for his political life amid a tough re-election campaign, a legal expert said.
Gascon said he would recommend a sentence of 50 years to life for each of the brothers – Erik and Joseph "Lyle" Menendez – which would make them immediately eligible for parole under state law because they were under 26 at the time of the slayings.
"The guy who is down 30 points in his re-election bid threw his Hail Mary today, and he is letting out the Menendez brothers," criminal defense attorney David Gelman told Fox News Digital. "They're eligible for parole, and he's going to make sure that happens. It is a terrible day for the criminal justice system."
WATCH ON FOX NATION: MENENDEZ BROTHERS: VICTIMS OR VILLAINS?
The Menendez brothers could be released from prison after Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon said he would back a move that they be re-sentenced for the murders of their parents. (Fox News)
Gascon's campaign declined to comment on the matter. Fox News Digital has reached out to the DA's office.
The Menendez brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for the murders of Jose and Mary "Kitty" Menendez in their Beverly Hills mansion. The pair said they had been sexually abused by their father, but prosecutors argued that money was the motive behind the slayings.
During the murders, the brothers ran out of shotgun shells and had to go outside to get more to finish off their mother, who investigators said had blood on the bottom of her shoes, indicating that she tried to escape after the shooting began.
Some critics questioned the timing of Gascon's announcement, given he is fighting to keep his job amid heavy criticism of his progressive criminal justice policies.
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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon (Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
"D.A. George Gascon received the Menendez habeas corpus petition in May 2023 and request for re-sentencing in February 2024. Yet, he has waited until days before the November 5 election, 30 points down in the polls with articles coming about how his failed policies have led to additional murders of innocent people, to release his recommendation for re-sentencing," Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor running against Gascon, said in a statement.
"By releasing it now, Gascon has cast a cloud over the fairness and impartiality of his decision, allowing Angelenos to question whether the decision was correct and just or just another desperate political move by a D.A. running a losing campaign scrambling to grab headlines through a made-for-TV decision. Angelenos and everyone involved deserve better," he added.
An undated photo of the Menendez family is shown during a panel at CrimeCon 2024 in Nashville, Tenn., on June 2. (Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
Gascon announced earlier that he was looking into the case after new evidence appeared to corroborate the sexual abuse allegations.
The new evidence includes allegations made public last year that their father also molested Roy Rossello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, in the 1980s, and a letter that Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano, that surfaced in 2015, years after the latter's death.
Jose Menendez was an RCA records executive at the time of his death.
LETTER AT CENTER OF MENENDEZ BROTHERS' BID FOR FREEDOM CALLED INTO QUESTION
Pictured is a letter allegedly written by Erik Menendez and sent to his cousin, Andy Cano, eight months before the killings of Jose and Kitty Menendez. (SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY)
"They have been in prison for nearly 35 years," Gascon said of the brothers on Thursday. "I believe that they have paid their debt to society."
He added that a re-sentencing must be approved by the court before it becomes official and that a parole board will still need to sign off on their eventual release. He went on to praise the brothers' good behavior during their decades behind bars.
Gascon said there was never any question that the brothers carried out the murders but to what degree of culpability should they be held accountable.
At the time of the killings, the case drew a lot of media attention. Attention resurged after the release of an eight-part Netflix true-crime drama, "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," and "The Menendez Brothers" documentary, also on the streaming platform.
Lyle, left, and Erik, right, are pictured in mugshots from 2023. After years apart, they were moved into the same housing unit at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego in 2018, according to the New York Daily News. (California Department of Corrections)
Gelman noted the list of celebrities rallying around the pair, calling for their freedom.
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"He (Gascon) thinks they should be released because Kim Kardashian, because Rosie O'Donnell, because Netflix, they make these guys look like martyrs. They think this is good for Hollywood.
When these two brothers get out, and they will, and they go and commit another crime, you know where the blood is?" he added. "It's going to be on George Gascon's hands. This is a disgrace."
Fox News Digital's Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
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