Menendez brothers’ freedom bid points to shifting attitudes on sex abuse

The Menendez brothers are back in the national spotlight nearly 30 years after they were imprisoned for murdering their parents, as new evidence is sparking calls for leniency.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney filed a petition last week to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez, whose 1990s trials were national hot-button stories, and a clemency request was sent to California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday.

The requests demonstrate how vastly attitudes about sexual assault, especially against men, have changed since the 1989 murders, experts say.

The petition for resentencing includes two new pieces of evidence, both alluding to ongoing abuse by the father, José Menendez. One is a 1988 letter written by Erik Menendez, which attorneys say corroborates the allegations that he was sexually abused by his father. The other is an allegation that José Menendez raped Roy Rosselló, a former member of a well-known 1980s boy band, Menudo. At the time, Menendez was an executive at RCA Records, which had a recording deal with Menudo.

“Since the original prosecution of the Menendez brothers more than nearly three decades ago, our office has gained a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding sexual violence,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a press release on Oct. 24. “We recognize that it is a widespread issue impacting individuals of all gender identities, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to support all victims as they navigate the long-lasting effects of such trauma.”

Experts who study sexual violence told The Washington Post that one of the reasons the Menendez brothers are receiving this attention is because attitudes about sexual violence against men have changed in the past 30 years. There is a growing openness and willingness to disclose abuse that wasn’t present in the 1990s, they said.

The experts noted, however, that the recently released Netflix documentary focusing on the circumstances around the murder of the Menendez parents, the brothers’ access to legal resources and their notoriety stemming from the brutality of the murder and the national attention it received have also played in part in the call for resentencing and clemency.

The brothers were younger than 26 years old at the time of the murders of José and Kitty Menendez and have served roughly 34 years in prison each. If they receive a new sentence of 50 years to life, they would immediately be eligible for parole, a move that most of the remaining Menendez family supports.

While prosecutors in the 1990s argued that the brothers killed their parents for financial gain, Eric and Lyle Menendez have long said the 1989 shotgun killings were the result of years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse by their father and indifference from their mother. Evidence of the abuse was barred from being discussed in their 1996 trial.

Carlos Cuevas, a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University and a co-director of the Violence and Justice Research Lab, said the attention the case is receiving shows a societal shift in how male victims of childhood sexual abuse are perceived and believed.

“Public awareness of sexual assault has grown because of the #MeToo movement, the Harvey Weinstein cases and because of the Catholic Church scandal,” he said. “Its been a gradual process and still it is minimized in many ways, but knowledge about how abuse can impact your behavior has increased.”

Astrid Heppenstall Heger, a medical professor at the University of Southern California and the director of the Violence Intervention Program, said that when she began working with victims of sexual violence in the 1980s and 1990s, attitudes were very different.

“At the time, the attitude was to forgive and forget the assault,” she said. “That is why most people never told anybody about the assault, nobody offered them the help they needed and it was incredibly traumatic for them.”

Now, Heger said, doctors, lawyers, judges and the general public are all becoming more aware of how sexual abuse can impact the behavior of children and adults.

Experts told The Post that this analysis does not imply that most victims of abuse retaliate against their perpetrators.

Ridhi Mukhopadhyay, the director of the Sexual Violence Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that offers legal aid to victims in Washington, said it’s not common for victims of abuse to attack or kill their abusers, but it is becoming more common and acceptable for people to talk about the abuse they have experienced because of changing attitudes.

“When the Menendez case went to trial, there still wasn’t as much public attention around sexual assault and its impact on behavior, conduct and trauma,” said Mukhopadhyay. “Now there are multiple studies that show how sexual assault, especially against children, can change the course of your life.”

Expectations of who could commit abuse are changing as well, she said, noting that three decades ago, people would rarely consider that someone as “well-to-do” as José Menendez could commit sexual assault.

“There used to be a public idea that sexual abuse doesn’t happen in families where there’s money,” she said. “Since then, the Epstein, Weinstein and Cosby cases have shown that you can be well positioned in your community and still do horrendous things.”

Mukhopadhyay noted other societal changes since the 1990s may be impacting how people view the Menendez brothers.

“Compared to 30 years ago, there’s so much true-crime culture where we are reevaluating cases,” she said. “We used to think that sending people to prison makes our communities safer but now we are realizing that the criminal justice system isn’t fulfilling our safety needs.”

Mukhopadhyay noted that around the country, “victim defendants” - a term used for victims of abuse who subsequently get accused of a crime - are imprisoned with long-term sentences and without the attention the brothers are receiving.

“Our most vulnerable survivors, including girls of color, still experience systemic barriers and obstacles when they disclose abuse and try to hold their abusers accountable,” she said.