After the Verdict: A Wall of Denials
Once sentenced to life without parole in 1996, Lyle and Erik Menendez entered a new phase of their story: a grinding, technical war of appeals and habeas corpus petitions.
In 1998, the California Court of Appeal upheld their convictions. The state Supreme Court refused review. Habeas petitions in state court were denied in 1999. They turned to federal court, only to see a magistrate judge recommend denial in 2003 and the Ninth Circuit do the same in 2005.
By mid-decade, it seemed the case was over in the eyes of the law, even if it remained alive in the public imagination.
A New Allegation Emerges
Then, years later, a new voice entered the story. In 2023, former Menudo member Roy Rosselló—a Puerto Rican singer once signed to RCA Records while José Menendez worked there—publicly alleged that José had drugged and raped him at age 14 during a visit to the Menendez home in New Jersey.
Rosselló’s account added an external accusation of sexual abuse, separate from Lyle and Erik’s claims. Around the same time, an undated 1988 letter surfaced, apparently written by Erik to his cousin Andy Cano, describing abuse. Author Robert Rand said he had discovered the letter in Cano’s dresser in 2018.
These pieces formed the centerpiece of a 2023 request for a new hearing: were the brothers telling the truth about their father all along?
A District Attorney Breaks Ranks
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón took the unusual step of publicly engaging with the new evidence. On October 3, 2024, he announced his office was actively reviewing the appeal. Three weeks later, he went further, asking the court to resentence the brothers.
Gascón walked a tightrope. He said he did not believe manslaughter would have been an appropriate original charge, given the premeditation involved. But he also stated that he believed the brothers had endured “a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home, and molestation,” and that the decades already served, combined with their prison behavior, warranted reconsideration.
Resentencing hearings were scheduled and then repeatedly delayed—pushed from late 2024 into early 2025 by court scheduling and even the Los Angeles fires.
Politics Shifts, So Does the Case
Before any final outcome, politics intervened. Nathan Hochman, newly elected as district attorney, reversed Gascón’s stance. He opposed resentencing and attacked the self-defense narrative as “self-serving lies,” questioning the credibility of Erik’s supposed 1988 letter since it had never surfaced during the original trials.
Despite that opposition, in May 2025 a judge resentenced Lyle and Erik to fifty years to life, citing laws that treat those under twenty-six at the time of their crimes differently from older offenders. For the first time, the brothers were technically eligible for parole.
Hope, Then Another Closed Door
Eligibility did not translate into freedom. In August 2025, the California Board of Parole Hearings denied Erik parole, citing ongoing rule violations and public safety concerns. The next day, Lyle was also denied, with the board pointing to repeated cell phone infractions.
Both men will be able to seek parole again in 2028. By then, they will have spent nearly four decades in prison.
Their story, once about a single night in 1989, has become something broader: a test case for how the justice system revisits old convictions in light of new abuse claims, evolving science on youth behavior, and shifting political winds. For now, though, the doors remain locked.