LA prosecutor asks to withdraw Menendez brothers' bid for resentencing

by Huw GRIFFITH

The chief prosecutor in Los Angeles said Monday he was asking for the withdrawal of a resentencing motion for Erik and Lyle Menendez because the brothers continue to lie about the 1989 murder of their wealthy parents.

The pair were jailed for life after a blockbuster legal drama three decades ago detailing the shotgun slayings of Jose and Kitty Menendez at the family's luxury Beverly Hills mansion, which the brothers staged to look like a mafia hit.

But a growing campaign to free them -- given new life by a hit Netflix series -- has pursued a three-pronged strategy: clemency, a new trial or resentencing.

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Prosecutors in Los Angeles had previously been supportive, but newly installed District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who has already opposed a new trial, on Monday said there should be no resentencing either.

"In looking at whether or not the Menendezes have exhibited the full insight and complete responsibility for their crimes, they have not," Hochman told reporters during a press conference.

"They have told 20 different lies, they've actually admitted to four of them, but 16 realized lies remain unacknowledged."

Hochman said he was asking the court, which is expected to sit on March 20 and 21, to withdraw a supportive motion submitted by his predecessor in "the interests of justice."

Erik, now 54, and Lyle, 57, have spent more than three decades behind bars.

During two trials in the 1990s that gripped America, prosecutors painted their parents' shotgun murders as a cold-hearted bid by the then-young men -- Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 -- to get their hands on their parents' $14 million fortune.

But their attorneys described the 1989 killings as an act of desperate self-defense by young men subjected to years of sexual abuse and psychological violence at the hands of a tyrannical father and a complicit mother.

The case saw a huge surge of renewed interest last year with the release of the Netflix hit "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story."

Last month Hochman set out his opposition to the brothers' attempt to get a new trial.

In a forensic presentation on Monday, he used much of the same reasoning to lay out his position on resentencing, which he said hinged on the brothers' continued unwillingness to come clean about their crimes.

Hochman said the men had offered five disparate explanations for the deaths of their parents, ranging from an initial claim that it was a mafia hit to the self-defense that they ultimately relied on at trial.

In reality, he said, the murders were meticulously planned and cold-blooded.

He said the slayings were followed up with attempts to destroy a will they thought would cut them out of the parents' fortune, and months of deceit, including attempts to get people to lie in court for them.

But, he said, his office would be prepared to revisit the idea of resentencing in the future if the brothers "accept complete responsibility for all their criminal actions."

The third route to freedom for the brothers rests with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has the power to grant clemency at any time.