Erik Menendez denied conditional release: Board quotes incomplete rehabilitation

A hearing panel on Thursday denied conditional release for Erik Menendez and discovered that he has more work to do to rehabilitate himself before he can be released from prison.

The double panel acknowledged that Menendez did good works behind bars, but also stated that they were concerned about a long list of rules of rules. He can apply again in three years.

“That ability to show a kind of face, but being something else concerns us,” said Commissioner Robert Barton. “You can grow and mature in some ways, but have blind spots in other areas.”

For the first time, Menendez was a conditional release since he and his brother, Lyle, killed their parents in their house in Beverly Hills in 1989.

The family members of the Menendez brothers have called for release for years. A spokesperson for the family said on Wednesday that they were “cautiously optimistic” that the conditional administration would see that the brothers have been reformed. After the decision was announced, the family spokesperson said that the outcome was ‘disappointing’.

“We will stay with him and stick to the hope that he will soon be able to return home,” said the spokesperson.

In a statement to the panel, Erik Menendez offered an apology for the murder of his parents, Jose and Kitty, who say that the murders have inflicted trauma to his family who will continue to exist for generations.

“I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably regretted that I have endured them from August 20, 1989 to this day,” he said. “This should be about them. It’s about them and if I ever get the chance of freedom, I want the healing about them.”

The Parole Board evaluates or prisoners who are eligible are a risk for society if they are released. The conditional lawyer of Mendez, Heidi Rummel, claimed that he does not.

“Mr. Menendez is so far from the person he was when he committed this crime,” she said.

Public Prosecutor Habib Balian argued that Menendez said what he thought the conditional administration wants to hear, but that he continues to pursue a “false self -defense story” about the crimes.

“He’s on the road. He’s not there yet,” said Balian. “He is not reformed. He is still an unreasonable risk for society.”

During the hearing, Barton went through a long list of prison violations and undermined the argument of the defense that the brothers have been every ‘model prisoners’.

Barton quoted fights with other prisoners, possession of illegal mobile phones, drug and alcohol consumption, a hunger strike and involvement in a tax fraud plan in collaboration with a prison gang.

“Many of these things you are involved in, you don’t go to the next level to think about what the consequences are,” said Barton.

Menendez apologized about the violations and said that he corresponded “1000%” to the criticism of the Commissioners.

He also tried to explain his behavior. Menendez said that he “had made the opportunity” to participate in the tax fraud scheme – which was not fully explained – because it gave him protection against the gang.

“It was an extremely violent garden that I tried to survive,” he said.

He also said that the use of drugs and the collaboration with the gang “just felt ugly and dirty.” He said he promised to stop using drugs in October 2013 and to live for another goal.

“I wondered,” Who do I want to be when I die? “He said. “I believe I will get another conditional sign if I die.”

The commissioners seemed mainly focused on his use of mobile phones, which will continue as recent as last January. Menendez said he paid $ 1,000 per telephone and it would use to make contact with his wife, YouTube and pornography and to keep an eye on his business. He said he preferred the mobile phone above the prison telephone because prison officials could not listen.

“What I received in terms of the phone and my connection with the outside world was much greater than the consequences of the fact that I was caught by phone,” he said. “I really became addicted to the phones. You do life without [parole]Nobody really harms this. ”

It was not until November 2024 that he realized that he had a real opportunity to become free. At that moment he realized that the telephone violations meant that he “destroyed my life” by risking the denial of conditional release. He said he had since followed a lesson about criminal thinking and had come to see that phones have a corrupting effect on prison.

The commissioners also gone through the details of the murders and Menendez asked about his state of mind and why the brothers chose to kill their parents instead of fleeing the situation. Menendez referred to a history of sexual abuse, although he was excluded to go into detail.

“It’s hard to convey how frightening my father was,” he said. “When I look back on the person I was then, and what I believed about the world and my parents, running away was unthinkable. Renloeg meant death.”

Barton asked if Menendez believed that “part of this” was self -defense. He said, “No,” although his lawyer objected to the question. Later, Menendez said he feared that his father was about to rape him that night.

Barton also asked why he killed his mother. Menendez responded as soon as he realized that his mother was aware of the abuse, he had come to see that she was united with his father.

“On that night I saw them as one person,” he said.

Barton cut Menendez at one point when he started discussing the sexual abuse.

“The purpose of this hearing is not to try this case again,” he said. “Nor is the goal of this hearing to put your parents on the process.”

At the end of the hearing, Barton said that the decision was mainly influenced by the behavior of Menendez as a prisoner. But he also noticed that the murder of Kitty at the time showed “deprived of human compassion” that Kitty seems to have been the victim of domestic violence.

He said that Menendez was “not in his hands” for his life at the time of the murders.

“The most true thing you said in terms of accountability is that there is no justification for your actions,” said Barton. “Doing what you did when you did, how you did it, there is no justification.”

The conditional hearing was kept remotely via Microsoft teams. A polar reporter, James Queally of the Los Angeles Times, watched the hearing and issued reports to the media.

Judge Michael Jesic Hijb the brothers to life in prison in May to 50 years, giving them the opportunity to find conditional release. The decision came eight months after George Gascón, the former public prosecutor in Los Angeles, asked the court to awaken them and to say that they deserved a chance of freedom.

The Mendez case came back to public consciousness last year after the premiere of the popular Netflix drama series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”