Kitty Menendez’s brother is not happy over the Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s decision to recommend resentencing for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are serving life sentences for the 1989 shooting deaths of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez.
“He is in disbelief,” Kathleen Cady, an attorney for Milton Andersen, Kitty’s 90-year-old brother, tells PEOPLE. “Mr. Andersen firmly believes that the correct verdict was reached, and the correct sentence was imposed. He is extremely disappointed Mr. Gascón is going to be making this recommendation and hopes that the judge will not go along with it.”
“He considers it a miscarriage of justice,” says Cady.
On Thursday, Oct. 24, Gascón announced his plan to ask a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to resentence Erik, 56, and Lyle, 53, to life, but with the possibility of parole.
As “youthful offenders,” who were both under the age of 26 when they killed their parents, they would immediately be eligible for parole.
At a Thursday press conference, Gascón cited the brothers’ “journey of redemption and a journey of rehabilitation” while in prison, pointing to prison groups they created that addressed untreated trauma and helped inmates with physical disabilities.
“All this was done by two young people,” he said. “They had no hopes of ever getting out of prison.”
Cady, in a statement on Oct. 24, called the decision by Gascón, who is running for reelection this year, a desperate bid “to salvage his political career.”
She says his handling of the case is “unconscionable.”
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Now that the district attorney’s office has filed the resentencing petition, the case will go before a judge. If the judge agrees with Gascón’s recommendation to resentence the brothers, the matter will go before a parole board.
Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18 when they fatally shot their parents using 12-gauge shotguns in the den of their Beverly Hills, Calif., home on Aug. 20, 1989.
Jose, who was the chief operating officer of RCA Records, was hit multiple times, including point blank in the head. Kitty, 47, was shot multiple times, including once in the face. The killings, according to the brothers, came after years of sexual abuse by Jose — abuse which they claimed was ignored by their mom, a former pageant queen.
However, prosecutors at the time said the two brothers’ motive was greed and cited their lavish spending spree after the slayings.
In 1996, three years after their first trial ended in a deadlock, the siblings were convicted of the first-degree murders and subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
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