Convicted double assassin Erik Menendez, the youthful of the Menendez brothers, dished on the “bullying and trauma” he’s seen over almost three a long time in California’s jail system in a uncommon interview on the “2 Angry Men Podcast.”
“Prison was hard for me,” Menendez advised the hosts, TMZ’s Harvey Levin and his personal lawyer, Mark Geragos, talking of his incarceration in previous tense. “I faced a lot of bullying and trauma – it was a dangerous environment.”
Menendez and his brother, Joseph “Lyle” Mendnez, are each being held in California’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility on life sentences with out the opportunity of parole, however beneath a brand new Golden State legislation, they might see their sentences diminished at a listening to subsequent month and in the end obtain freedom.
“I was picked on, bullied, violently, and it was traumatic,” he mentioned, noting that such therapy is frequent for a lot of inmates who should not concerned with jail gangs.
“Prison can be hard, and there’s a lot of suffering in prison,” he mentioned.
Menendez, who alongside his brother was convicted of the 1989 shotgun murders of their mother and father, has been praised for his good habits over the previous three a long time behind bars.
“I was separated from Lyle, and I remember the day that I was told Lyle just got assaulted and got his jaw broken…I’m thinking he’s over there, I’m going through this over here, and at least we could protect each other, maybe, if we were together. We were not even allowed to be together.”
The brothers, who have been sentenced to life with out parole in 1996, have been lastly transferred to the identical facility in 2018.
Situations have improved over time, he added.
“I believe that [the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] is doing their best, and I want to work with them. I know Lyle is, at really changing that culture today,” he mentioned. “But 25 years ago, it was an even darker, more dangerous place.”
Lyle Menendez, in the identical podcast episode, mentioned his involvement in a prison-based inexperienced area undertaking that he mentioned he would nonetheless return to work on if granted launch.
They exhausted all potential appeals in 2005, Geragos has mentioned beforehand, and till a brand new California legislation went into impact they’d no hope of ever attaining freedom, but they continued to indicate good habits and preserve out of bother behind bars.
The brothers are scheduled for resentencing hearings on March 20 and 21 in Los Angeles.
The hearings have been postponed a number of instances, first after the previous Los Angeles District Lawyer pushing for his or her launch misplaced his re-election marketing campaign, and once more after wildfires tore by means of LA.
“My brother and I are cautiously hopeful,” Lyle Menendez advised Levin close to the top of the episode. “We’re in prayer with our family, and we’re hopeful, and we’re just trying not to go a little crazy in the interim.”
The brothers have a separate habeas petition making its manner by means of the courts that might additionally consequence of their freedom, arguing that new proof bolsters their self-defense declare.
On Aug. 20, 1989, they snuck up behind their mother and father, Jose Menendez and Mary “Kitty” Menendez, from behind with shotguns and killed them each of their Beverly Hills lounge.
The brothers have argued that they did it in self-defense, claiming their father was going to kill them once they threatened to show him as a toddler molester.
Whereas about two dozen kinfolk have forgiven them and are publicly supporting their launch, their mom’s brother is vehemently opposed and beforehand advised Fox Information Digital by means of his attorneys that he believes the motive was greed.
After killing their mother and father, the brothers went on a $700,000 spending spree that included luxurious automobiles, Rolex watches and even a restaurant.
