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Menendez brothers accuse DA of violating California's victims' rights law amid their bid for freedom

Wednesday, April 2, 2025
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Attorneys for Erik and Lyle Menendez accused Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman of violating California's victims' rights law amid the brothers' ongoing push for their release from prison.

The remarks come after Hochman announced last month that he's asking the court to withdraw his predecessor's motion for resentencing.

In a motion submitted Tuesday, their lawyers said Hochman is in violation of Marsy's Law, otherwise known as the state's Victims' Bill of Rights Act, and that "instead of championing the victims' family here, the motion to withdraw abandons them completely."

The motion contends that the prison infractions that Hochman said made the brothers a possible danger to the public if released were mostly about 15 years old, insisting that those infractions seem arcane and perhaps even quaint by today's standards. They include being in possession of typewriter and stationary 27 years ago, improperly getting a pair of sneakers, spending too much time on the telephone, and possession of a floppy disk with personal letters on it. None of the infractions, according to the motion, indicate "rationally" indicate current dangerousness.

Hochman has argued that the brothers do not meet the standards for resentencing or rehabilitation because they "persist in telling these lies for the last over 30 years about their self-defense defense."



Asked by ABC News if he has a checklist of each individual lie, Hochman said, "I actually do."

"The essence of that checklist is that they'd have to finally admit after 30 years, they killed their parents willfully, deliberately and in premeditated fashion, not because they believed that their parents were going to kill them that night," Hochman said.

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Hochman said his office has identified 20 lies that they have told since the day of the murder, and that the brothers have admitted to four of them while there are 16 additional lies "that are the essence of their self-defense" that remain unacknowledged.

The brothers are serving life without the possibility of parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez.



Menendez family members who want the brothers released have said the brothers endured horrific abuse, have admitted guilt and apologized, and have pushed back against Hochman's insistence that the brothers weren't sexually abused, with one cousin calling the district attorney's tone "hostile, dismissive and patronizing."

Hochman initially announced the move to withdraw the motion for resentencing on March 10, calling the brothers' claims of self-defense part of a litany of "lies." Following the press briefing, Lyle Menendez posted on Facebook that "of all those 'lies' (Hochman) talked about, several of them were admitted/stipulated to in the first trial. ... And several other 'lies' were absolutely disproven or reasonably disputed."

Hochman's predecessor, George Gascón, announced in October that he supported resentencing for the brothers. Gascón recommended their sentences of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and said they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.

ABC News contributed to this report.

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