New DA Won't Support Menendez Brothers' Resentencing: Why He Thinks 'They Shouldn't Get Out of Jail'

Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman will not recommend resentencing for the Menendez brothers, saying they have not taken full responsibility for their crimes and accusing them of telling “lies” for the “past 30 years.”

During a press conference on Monday March 10, Hochman suggested that Lyle and Erik Menendez’s claim of self-defense was fabricated, and said the pair have not accepted responsibility for fatally shooting their parents in 1989.

“In looking at whether they have exhibited full insight and complete responsibility for their crimes, they have not,” Hochman said.

At this time, he said, “our position is that they shouldn’t get out of jail.”

The courts will have the final say in whether the Menendez brothers are resentenced, which could make them immediately eligible for parole.

The brothers still have a resentencing hearing scheduled to begin March 20.

Hochman said his office is “prepared to go forward” with that hearing, but is asking the court “in the interests of justice” to withdraw a motion filed by his predecessor, George Gascón, which asked that the brothers be resentenced.

He offered the brothers a “pathway” for his office to support their resentencing, saying they would have to denounce their self-defense argument and “admit” to 16 lies he claims they have told about what happened before and after they killed their parents.

In a release, Hochman specified what he believes is an untrue assertion: the brothers’ “fear that their mother and father were going to kill them the night of Aug. 20, 1989, justifying the brutal murders of their parents with shotgun blasts through the back of their father’s head, a point-blank blast through their mother’s face, and shots to their kneecaps to stage it as a Mafia killing.”

“If they acknowledge the lies they have told for over 30 years,” Hochman said at the press conference, “then we will certainly evaluate the quality of that sincerity.”

He said they “failed to meet the requirements” to show they are no longer a danger to society.

Following a 1993 mistrial, Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of shooting and killing their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez in their $5 million Beverly Hills home in 1989.

They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The brothers claimed they murdered their parents because they feared for their lives. Their father, they claimed in emotional court testimony, had sexually abused them both for years and threatened to kill them if they said a word about their disturbing family secret.

The brothers have fought for decades to be released from prison.

In May 2023, lawyers for the brothers filed a Habeas Corpus petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking a new trial based on new evidence.

That new evidence included sexual abuse allegations against Jose by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, who claims Jose, a successful music executive, raped him in the 1980s. 

It also included a newly discovered letter Erik wrote to a now-deceased cousin detaling his father’s alleged sexual abuse months before the murders.

Gascón said the brothers had “paid their debt to society” and have helped fellow prisoners address untreated trauma.

His official support ended when he lost the 2024 election to Hochman.

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Family members who have fought for the brothers’ release issued a blistering statement about Hochman’s assessment that the pair “do not meet the standards for resentencing until they deliver an apology.”

Hochman, the family-led Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition wrote in a statement obtained by PEOPLE, “made it clear today he is holding Erik, Lyle, and our family hostage.” 

Perhaps “most alarming, however,” the statement continued, was Hochman’s “not-so-veiled insistence they were not sexually abused. He instead sent a message to every young boy who’s the victim of abuse that they should not come forward or tell your truth. Because he’s demanding as much out of Erik and Lyle right now.”  

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently told the California Board of Parole Hearings to determine whether the brothers would pose a risk to the public if they were released from prison.