The family of Erik and Lyle Menendez is attempting a new charge Friday in an effort to have their sentences reduced for the murders of their parents.
According to NBC News, more than 20 members of the Menendez clan are scheduled to meet with the Los Angeles attorney general to convince the Crown to adjust the two brothers’ sentences. They are currently serving a life sentence without parole for killing their parents in 1989.
In their view, a new, reduced sentence would better reflect “the abuse, trauma and rehabilitation demonstrated by Erik and Lyle over the past 35 years.”
The Menendez brothers claimed during their trial that they shot their parents, Jose and Kitty, in their Beverly Hills home, following many years of sexual abuse by their father. A version of the facts which was denied by the prosecution, which instead asserted that they had been guided by financial motives.
“Despite the abuse they suffered as children and the injustice of their current sentence, Erik and Lyle Menendez have spent the last three decades taking responsibility for their actions and contributing positively to their community through their leadership and their rehabilitation,” proclaims the entourage in a press release consulted by the American media.
Thus, those close to the Menendez brothers “hope that this meeting will bring them closer to the possibility of spending the next Christmas together.”
The then highly publicized case, which concluded in 1996 after two trials, received a new lease of life after the story was the subject of a hit Netflix series and film.
