Newly sworn-in Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman has transferred two deputies who petitioned a judge to grant parole to Erik and Lyle Menendez, who became a cause célèbre following the dramatization of their decades-old conviction in Netflix’s “Monsters.”
Hochman took over the DA’s office last week from the more progressive George Gascón, who was vocally in favor of resentencing or clemency for the brothers. They are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents.
Deputies Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford submitted a 57-page filing on Oct. 24 arguing attesting to the “overwhelming” evidence of the brothers’ rehabilitation and requesting that they be resentenced to 50 years to life, which would make them eligible for parole immediately.
Theberge, who led the resentencing unit under Gascón, will be transferred to the office of the Alternate Public Defender, while Lunsford is no longer part of the D.A.’s post-conviction unit, Variety reported on Wednesday.
The L.A. DA’s office did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Wednesday was also the day Gascón originally set for the resentencing hearing, though that has since been pushed until late January by Judge Michael Jesic.
After the election, Hochman told the TheWrap in a statement that he still needs to become “thoroughly familiar with the relevant facts, the evidence and the law” before making a decision about the brothers’ fate.
Celebrities including “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” co-creator Ryan Murphy, Kim Kardashian and Rosie O’Donnell have argued that, in the light of new evidence corroborating the Menendez brothers’ account of horrific sexual abuse, they should be pardoned or granted the possibility of parole.
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