(17 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Van Nuys, California – 17 April 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Geragos, defense attorney for Lyle and Erik Menendez:
“I would ask you to ask the DA why at the last minute he does a Hail Mary filing of a motion to continue and does not notify any of the victims or the victims’ lawyer. Why? What is going on? Whose interest is he vindicating?”
2. SOUNDBITE (English) District Attorney Nathan Hochman, Los Angeles County:
“We believe and the California courts confirm that in order for someone to be rehabilitated, they need to fully come clean with all the entire breadth of their criminal conduct. In this case, the Menendez brothers for the past 30 years have not come clean.”
++WHITE FLASH++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) District Attorney Nathan Hochman, Los Angeles County:
“We filed a motion dealing with a report that we received from the parole board two days ago"
++WHITE FLASH++
4. SOUNDBITE (English) District Attorney Nathan Hochman, Los Angeles County:
"When we received that risk assessment, we believed it constituted additional facts that the court should consider in deciding whether or not Menendez brothers do pose a risk of danger to society."
5. Los Angele County superior courthouse exterior
STORYLINE:
Erik and Lyle Menendez could learn this week whether they will get reduced sentences — and the chance of freedom — nearly 30 years after they were convicted of murdering their parents.
A Los Angeles judge will preside over the resentencing hearing that’s expected to last two days starting Thursday. The judge could rule during the hearing or issue a written decision later. If he shortens their sentences, the brothers would still need approval from the state’s parole board to leave prison.
The district attorney’s office filed a motion late Wednesday to delay the resentencing hearings so the court can obtain one aspect of the state parole board’s comprehensive risk assessments.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the assessments in February and the brothers’ final risk assessment hearings are scheduled for June 13th of this year. Prosecutors said in their filing that one part of the risk assessment has already been completed.
Outside the Superior Court of Los Angeles County Thursday, District Attorney Nathan Hochman explained why the release of that assessment merited a request for a continuance, “When we received that risk assessment, we believed they constituted additional facts that the court should consider in deciding whether or not Menendez brothers do pose a risk of danger to society,”.
Just minutes before, the criminal defense attorney for the brothers, Mark Geragos, spoke passionately about the new developments.
“I would ask you to ask the DA why at the last minute he does a Hail Mary filing of a motion to continue and does not notify any of the victims or the victims’ lawyer. Why? What is going on? Whose interest is he vindicating?,” said Geragos.
The brothers were sentenced in 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering their entertainment executive father Jose Menendez and mother Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. The brothers were 18 and 21 at the time of the killings. While defense attorneys argued the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers killed their parents for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.
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