The fate of the Menendez brothers will be decided by the end of the week, LA DA George Gascon told CNN
In the midst of a dark re-election campaign, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon is hoping the Menendez brothers can change his political fortunes.
Weeks after giving a press conference in which he said he was “reviewing” new evidence that the brothers were sexually abused by their father, and amid public pressure to show leniency toward Eric and Lyle Menendez, Gascon told CNN on Tuesday that the case will be dramatic in the coming days. can take a turn.
“There are actually two different camps in my office,” Gascon told CNN's Jake Tapper this afternoon. “I have a group of people, some of whom were involved in the original trial, who are adamant that they should spend the rest of their lives in prison and not be molested. There are other people in my office who actually believe they were probably molested and they deserve some relief.”
“I plan to make a decision later this week,” Gascon said.
It has to be said, DA was honest in admitting that “the public's attention to this case” has come with the success of Ryan Murphy's Netflix hit. Monsters: The Lyle and Eric Menendez Story And a series of documentaries on the brothers certainly played a role in the fact that he clearly thinks he can win the vote.
Echoing what he said people Magazine earlier this week, the first-term DA's decision could see a recommendation to the court to upset the siblings. If that happens, the previously scheduled Nov. 26 hearing could result in the brothers' life sentences being commuted or even freed.
After the DA's election, a hearing is scheduled for next month on a plea by brothers Eric, 55, and Lyle, 56, who say they were sexually abused by their music industry executive father, as was at least one of the boy's members. Band Menudo, Roy Rossello. In a letter unearthed last year, Eric wrote to a cousin in 1988 detailing the extreme and repeated sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father after the brothers fatally shot their parents months before. In that context, the claims, which were whitewashed from the brothers' second trial in 1996, the results of the hearing in late November and any self-proclaimed “final” decision by Gascon could result in the brothers being quickly released or undergoing a new trial. 35 years after the murders of their father Jose and Kitty.
Downed by the vote against former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hochman, Gascon said at his Oct. 3 press conference on the case that his divided office believes “they have a moral and ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us. An outrage.” A determination based on whether they were worth bothering with, even though they were clearly murderers.”
“The timing is incredibly suspicious,” the Ted Sarandos-backed Hochman told Gascon at an Oct. 8 candidate debate, regarding the incumbent's sudden interest in the Menendez case. “You certainly don't ask me to hold a press conference that I'm thinking about it.”
Still, that humiliation didn't stop the DA from doubling down on the matter.
As Deadline reported on Oct. 16, Gascon told ABC News exclusively Impact x Nightline: The Menendez Brothers: Monsters or Victims? That “given the totality of the circumstances, I don't think they deserve to be in prison until they die.”
On the same day last week, Gascon's office met with about two dozen family members of the brothers and their lawyers as the relatives held their own press conference in front of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center — the building where both brothers' two 1990s trials took place.
Today on CNN, Tapper extended an invitation to the media-savvy Gascon “to come on the show Friday to explain to us whatever decision you make.” Want to bet he'll take Tapper?