OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:38 PM – Monday, March 10, 2025
Nathan Hochman, the district attorney for Los Angeles County, stated on Monday that he is requesting that the court revoke the prior district attorney’s move for resentencing for Lyle and Erik Menendez. He referred to the brothers’ self-defense claims as a series of “lies.”
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“Our position is that they shouldn’t get out of jail,” Hochman stated at a news conference on Monday. “We bring that position to the court. The court can agree with it, the court can disagree with it or modify it in some respect.”
Nevertheless, he noted that his office is “prepared to go forward” with the hearing in relation to their resentencing case, if need be.
The brothers are spending life in prison without the chance of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, and their hearing is scheduled for March 20th and 21st.
Hochman said that since the “brothers persist in telling these lies for the last over 30 years about their self-defense defense and persist in insisting that they did not suborn any perjury or attempt to suborn perjury, then they do not meet the standards for resentencing. They do not meet the standards for rehabilitation.”
“If the Menendez brothers, at some point, unequivocally, sincerely and fully accept complete responsibility for all their criminal actions, acknowledge that the self-defense defense was phony and their parents weren’t going to kill them … and finally come clean with the court, with the public, with the DA’s office, with their own family members and acknowledge all these lies … in the future, the court can weigh these new insights into making a determination as to whether they now qualify for rehabilitation and re-sentencing. And the [DA’s office] will do the same,” he continued.
The DA explained that he made his decision after consulting with Menendez’s family, defense lawyers, and previous prosecutors, as well as after examining trial transcripts, jail records, and filmed trial testimony.
He also brought up points related to premeditation, pointing out that the brothers used a fake ID to go to San Diego days prior to the killings in order to purchase firearms. The night of the murders, they prepared an alibi and proceeded to buy movie tickets, the DA reminded the public.
Hochman claimed that the brothers also attempted to make the murders appear to be a gang shooting, by shooting Jose and Kitty Menendez in the kneecaps after they were shot dead.
However, while the term “kneecapping” suggests shooting at the kneecap, it’s more accurate to say that gang members often target the knee area, aiming for the knee pit, as it is a common tactic for inflicting serious injury and causing pain and mobility issues.
The two brothers “also had the presence of mind to pick up all the shotgun shells” in order to hide their fingerprints. Then, they ditched their clothes, which were covered in blood, along with the firearms — Hochman added.
Additionally, the Menendez brothers “told 20 lies and have since admitted to only four,” he continued to claim.
At first, the brothers maintained they were innocent and suggested that their parents’ murders could have been Mafia-related.
However, Erik Menendez later confessed the crimes to his therapist, and the police were given the confession tape — which revealed the truth about their involvement.
“They convinced, not just the media, not just the police, but their family and their friends that they were 100% innocent of these crimes, until eventually these tapes came out,” Hochman reminded the public.
Later, the brothers claimed that their mother had raped Lyle Menendez and their father had raped Erik Menendez.
The brothers argued self-defense during the trial, maintaining that they were sexually abused by their father and that their parents were eventually going to murder them.
But, “the self-defense defense was a fabrication,” Hochman asserted — as self-defense wasn’t even mentioned in the confession to the therapist.
“What Erik said is that [his father] was a controlling, dominating force, and that is the reason,” Hochman explained. “He said the mother would be a witness to the crime, so she had to die, [and she] was so miserable because the father had an affair … [and] the mother could not live without the father.”
The “brothers have never come clean and admitted that they lied about their self-defense as well as suborned perjury and attempted to suborn perjury by their friends for the lies, among others, of their father violently raping Lyle’s girlfriend, their mother poisoning the family, and their attempt to get a handgun the day before the murders,” the DA said in a statement.
Hochman also said that the brothers “lied when they testified that when they burst into the den with their shotguns, that it was too dark to see and their parents were standing up or moving.”
“Expert testimony showed that, at all times, the parents were seated on the couch” or injured on the ground when shot.
The brothers also “lied when they testified that they thought their parents were going to kill them” on their family fishing trip a day before the killings, Hochman argued.
After the DA’s remarks, Lyle Menendez posted on Facebook, saying: “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.”
The DA’s announcement was also criticized by Menendez family members who want the brothers freed. They asserted that Hochman is ignoring “the fact they were repeatedly abused, feared for their lives, and have atoned for their actions.”
“Erik and Lyle are not the same young boys they were more than 30 years ago,” the family said in a statement. “They have apologized for their actions, which were the results of Jose’s sexual abuse and Kitty’s enablement. They have apologized for the horrific actions they took. They have apologized to us. And, they have demonstrated their atonement through actions that have helped improve countless lives. Yet, DA Hochman is effectively asking for them to publicly apologize to a checklist of actions they took in a state of shock and fear.”
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