The brothers’ first trial ended with jurors unable to reach verdicts, deadlocking between first-degree murder and lesser charges including manslaughter. Prosecutors, however, said the killings were financially motivated, pointing to lavish spending sprees by the brothers after the killings and arguing they were guilty of first-degree murder. Erik Menendez, now 52, and Lyle Menendez, now 55, never denied carrying out the killings, but contended they were repeatedly sexually assaulted by their father and feared for their lives.Īs a result, defense attorneys argued that the brothers “did not harbor the mental state needed for first-degree murder and were therefore guilty of manslaughter.” ![]() Jose Menendez and his wife, Mary Louise, or “Kitty,” were gunned down by their sons in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Previous appeals by the brothers have been rejected in the courts, the LA Times reported.Potentially reopening one of Southern California’s most notorious murder cases, attorneys for Erik and Lyle Menendez filed court papers Wednesday contending that newly surfaced evidence warrants the overturning of the brothers’ convictions for killing their parents in 1989. “Had jurors seen the letter Erik Menendez wrote to Andy Cano, and learned that Jose Menendez anally raped and orally copulated a 13 or 14 year-old in 1984, the prosecutor would not have been able to argue that ‘the abuse never happened,’” the legal filing argues. Rossello signed a declaration detailing those accusations, the legal filing says. Roger McCarthy, chief executive officer of Failure Analysis Associates, demonstrates, shot-by-shot, how he believes Erik and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents. Inside the home, Rossello was given wine by Menendez and then anally raped, the brothers’ legal team contends. Peacock’s docuseries “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” first brought up the allegations by Rossello that looked into accusations that Latin band members were abused by the group’s creator, Edgardo Diaz, the LA Times reported.ĭuring a trip to New York in 1983 or 1984, Diaz asked Rossello to join Jose Menendez in a limo that took the two to a New Jersey home, the legal filing alleged. ![]() ![]() ASSOCIATED PRESSīoy band member Roy Rossello claimed he was drugged and raped when he was 13 or 14 by Jose Menendez, who was a high-level executive at RCA in the 1980s, according to the legal documents. I need to put it out of my mind,” the note also states with Erik concluding his father told him “telling anyone.” Lyle Menendez, second from left, and his brother, Erik, second from right, are flanked by their attorneys Gerald Chaleff, left, and Robert Shapiro. “Every night, I stay up thinking he might come in. I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy. “He so overweight that I can’t stand to see him. I can’t explain it,” part of the note reads. It’s still happening Andy but it’s worse for me now. The legal filing obtained by the LA Times includes a handwritten note from Erik to cousin Andy Cano who reportedly died in 2003. They claimed their mother and father abused them physically and sexually for years, and during their first trials, jurors could not reach a verdict.īut the pair were convicted during their second trials in 1996 and hit with life sentences. The brothers were convicted of shooting and killing their parents, Jose and Kitty, in 1989. “The new evidence not only shows that Jose Menendez was very much a violent and brutal man who would sexually abuse children, but it strongly suggests that – in fact – he was still abusing Erik Menendez as late as 1988,” the filing states obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez leave court in Santa Monica, Calif., Aug. ![]() The filing also includes a recently found letter that Erik sent to a cousin eight months before the killings that suggested he was being allegedly abused by his father. The Menendez brothers - who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion - claim that new evidence leaves no doubt their father sexually abused them before his gruesome slaying.Įrik, 52, and Lyle Menendez, 55, requested the court vacate their 1996 convictions after an NBC docuseries revealed allegations that their father molested a former underage member of the 1980s Puerto Rican boy band “Menudo,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
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