Mark Geragos, an attorney representing Erik and Lyle Menendez, is speaking out after their respective parole applications were denied.
“It was obviously rigged,” Geragos, 67, claimed during a Saturday, August 23, appearance on TMZ’s “2 Angry Men” podcast. “It was unbelievable what a s***show this was.”
Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 after they confessed to killing their parents nearly 10 years prior. While the siblings both claimed their actions were out of self-defense following years of abuse, they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
After a Netflix documentary and scripted series about Erik and Lyle sparked renewed interest in the case, the Los Angeles District Attorney recommended in 2024 that the brothers be resentenced. A judge reduced their sentences in May to 50 years to life with the possibility of parole.
News broke on Thursday, August 21, that Erik was denied parole, one day before Lyle’s hearing. Lyle stood before a different panel of parole commissioners on Friday, August 22, who also recommended that he should not be released on parole. The panel specifically claimed that Lyle had multiple phone violations from his time behind bars.
“[It was a reporter who pointed out] that one of the commissioners during Lyle’s actually likened cell phone activity to gang activity, which has got to be the height of hypocrisy and talking about how it threatens correctional officers,” Geragos said, claiming officers often smuggle the devices into the prisons. “First of all, they have tablets [and] they got phones. They pay per minute. The only person who doesn’t profit or get impacted financially by cell phone usage in the prisons is the for-profit suppliers.”
He added, “The idea that a cell phone is going to be the reason that you’re not going — in this society [and] in this day and age of AI, where you’re trying to talk about people coming out and having some kind of a transition. The record is replete, with Lyle especially, that he would not fight back when he was attacked in prison.”
Geragos stressed that he had no proof that the hearings were actually rigged but argued that Erik and Lyle should have been good candidates for parole.
“It was Kabuki theatre,” he alleged, referencing the traditional Japanese art form. “[If] you remember during the resentencing hearing [that] there was all kinds of shenanigans by the board of parole to the point where the judge … actually stood up on the bench and on the record and said, ‘This is stupid.’”
According to Geragos, the parole commissioners’ alleged attempt to change the post-release risk assessment was “beyond the pale.”
Erik’s wife, Tammi, shared a similar critique after her husband’s hearing on Thursday.
“Parole Commissioner Robert Barton had his mind made up to deny Erik parole from the start,” she claimed in an X post. “This was a complete setup, and Erik never stood a chance! #injustice.”
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