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LA district attorney recommends Menendez brothers should be resentenced

CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses sexual assault. Discretion is advised.

The Los Angeles district attorney has recommended brothers Lyle and Eric Menendez be resentenced over the murders of their parents.

LA’s top prosecutor, George Gascon, announced Thursday that the new evidence in the cases warranted a review of the brothers’ life sentences.

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“I believe the brothers were subject to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in their home and molestation,” Mr Gascón told media.

“I believe they have paid their debt to society.”

The new evidence includes a sworn statement by former Menudo boy band member Roy Rossello, who alleged Jose Menendez, the boys’ father, sexually assaulted him in the 1980s.

Lawyers also said Eric wrote a letter to his cousin in the months before the murders, which alluded to the abuse endured.

Listen to The Briefing’s analysis of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series on the Menendez brothers:

Gascon believed the court treated sexual abuse victims differently at the time of the murders.

“There is no question that a jury today would look at this case probably very differently than a jury did 35 years ago,” he said.

Kitty and Jose Menendez were murdered by their sons in their Beverly Hills home in 1989; the case gripped Americans for years and was recently brought to television again in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series.

The brothers’ first trial ended in a mistrial after jurors could not reach a consensus on the charges.

In the second trial, evidence of sexual abuse towards the brothers was excluded, and then they were ultimately found guilty in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison.

A judge will ultimately make the decision, and the matter is scheduled to appear in court on November 26.

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