The high-stakes parole hearing of Lyle Menendez was thrown into chaos after an audio recording of his brother Erik’s own hearing was published online, sparking a furious uproar from family members, according to reports.
On Friday night, just as Lyle’s parole hearing was wrapping up, an audio recording of his younger brother’s hearing was obtained and published in excerpts by ABC 7 through a public records request –– detailing the 1989 shotgun slayings of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, the Los Angeles Times reported
The release sparked immediate backlash inside the hearing room, the outlet reported.
“This is disgusting,” Tiffani Lucero Pastor, one of the brothers’ relatives, screamed at the parole board, according to the outlet.
“You’ve misled the family, and now to compound matters, you’ve violated this family and their rights,” she said.
Erik, 54, was denied parole eligibility for three years after Thursday’s 10-hour hearing — his first shot at freedom since being sentenced to life for the murder of his parents.
It was a crushing defeat for Menendez after a long, winding legal battle in which his attorneys and family members had insisted he had been rehabilitated after more than three decades behind bars.
In the bombshell audio, Erik Menendez repeated several details from the night of the slayings, including his insights into his present character and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents.
“Fear was driving me to that den, and rage. The idea that dad was going to come to my room. Dad was going to come to my room and rape me that night, that was going to happen one way or another… And so I just went and I ran and I got the gun in my room and went down to the car and I loaded it and I ran into that den before Lyle could,” Erik Menendez said in the published recording.
When asked why the pair also targeted their mother, Kitty, in the murders, Erik told the board that his mother’s alleged support for their father made the two of them feel like “one person.”
“She was his [dad’s] victim, I should have known that, I should have separated it in my mind. But that night, I saw them as one person,” he said.
“I was raised purposely without the moral foundation that I should not do wrong when I know the difference between right and wrong. I was raised to lie, to cheat, to steal, steal in a sense, in an abstract way,” Erik continued in a separate excerpt.
When asked how he now knows the difference between right and wrong, Erik told the parole board it took an “evolution” in his life, beginning with “believing in God again.”
Parole Commissioner Robert Barton eventually detailed why the youngest brother was not eligible for parole — citing several rule violations, including possessing a cellphone and fights with inmates in 1997 and 2011.
Parole attorney Heidi Rummel, who represents both brothers, blasted the board and requested a break during the already 9-hour-long hearing for Lyle, eventually arguing the hearing would no longer be fair after the audio’s release, the LA Times reported.
“We are sitting here asking Mr. Menendez to follow rules,” she said during the hearing, according to the outlet. “And in the middle of this hearing, we find out CDCR is not following its own rules. It’s outrageous.”
“I don’t think you can possibly understand the emotion of what this family is experiencing,” Rummel said. “They have spent so much time trying to protect their privacy and dignity.”
Parole Commissioner Julie Garland had said audio of the brother’s parole hearings could be released under the California Public Records Act and that transcripts usually go public 30 days after a decision is issued, the outlet reported.
However, Rummel noted during the hearing that as a parole attorney, she had requests for parole hearing audio denied in the past.
“It’s highly unusual,” she said during the hearing.“It’s another attempt to make this a public spectacle.”
Rummel also objected to media access to the hearing, and implied at one point that media access had led to a “leak,” the outlet reported.
“What policy allows for this to happen in this hearing but literally no other hearing?” Rummel said to the board. “It’s never been done.”
A corrections department spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that the audio had been “erroneously” released.
Garland also said that audio from Lyle’s hearing would not be released until Rummel had the opportunity to contest its release in court.
The brother’s lawyer then stated she would look to seal the transcripts of the hearing using Marsy’s Law — a law used to protect the privacy of crime victims.
Despite the upset, California’s parole board deemed Lyle Menendez not suitable for parole, leaving both brothers in prison for the time being.
The brothers claimed they were acting in self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, with their mother’s help, and said they feared their parents would murder them to shut them up.
At their parole hearings, prosecutor Habib Balian dismissed that claim and argued that sticking to the alleged lie showed the brothers had no “insight” into their own crimes — a key component of parole eligibility in California.
The brothers have had celebrity status since their two high-profile trials in the 90s, but a Netflix documentary about the case brought them back into the spotlight last year.
Former District Attorney George Gascón filed a formal motion to resentence them, citing new evidence of sexual abuse, including a handwritten note from Erik to a cousin — dated before the murders — that detailed his father’s actions.
When Gascón lost his seat to Nathan Hochman last year, the new DA reversed course and seemingly did everything in his power to ensure the brothers stay behind bars.
The pair is still pushing for a new trial, but after this week’s defeat, direct clemency from Gov. Newsom is their best shot at freedom.
Newsom has played his cards close to the vest. He had ordered the parole board to conduct a risk assessment, but he chose to let things play out in court and then the normal parole process.
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