SACRAMENTO — A day after his youthful brother was denied launch, Lyle Menendez additionally noticed California parole officers reject his bid for freedom, ruling he’ll stay behind bars for now for the 1989 shotgun murders of his mother and father.
The parole board grilled Menendez, 57, over his efforts to get witnesses to lie throughout his trials, the lavish buying sprees he and his brother Erik, 54, took after their mother and father’ killings, and whether or not he felt reduction after the murders.
“I felt this shameful interval of these six months of getting to misinform kin who had been grieving,” Menendez advised the board. “I felt the necessity to endure. That it was no reduction.”
Because the elder brother, Menendez mentioned he at occasions felt just like the protector of Erik, however that he quickly realized the murders weren’t the proper means out of sexual abuse they had been allegedly struggling by the hands of their mother and father.
“I kind of began to really feel like I had not rescued my brother,” he mentioned. “I destroyed his life. I’d rescued no person.”
The carefully watched listening to for Lyle Menendez, some of the well-known inmates at present within the state’s jail system, was thrown into disarray Friday afternoon after audio of his brother’s parole listening to on Thursday was publicly launched.
The audio, revealed by ABC 7, sparked anger and frustration from the brothers’ kin and their lawyer, who accused the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation of leaking the audio and tainting Lyle’s listening to.
A CDCR spokesperson confirmed the audio was “erroneously” issued in response to a report request, however didn’t elaborate or instantly reply to further questions from The Occasions.
“I’ve protected myself, I’ve stayed out of this, I’ve not had a relationship with two human beings as a result of I used to be afraid, and I got here right here immediately and I got here right here yesterday and I trusted that this is able to solely be launched in a transcript,” mentioned Tiffani Lucero-Pastor, a relative of the brothers. “You’ve misled the household.”
Heidi Rummel, Lyle Menendez’s parole lawyer, additionally criticized CDCR, accusing the company of turning the listening to right into a “spectacle.”
“I don’t assume you possibly can presumably perceive the emotion of what this household is experiencing,” she mentioned. “They’ve spent a lot time making an attempt to guard their privateness and dignity.”
After the audio was revealed, Rummel mentioned relations who deliberate to testify determined to not converse in spite of everything, and mentioned she can be seeking to seal the transcripts of Friday’s listening to.
Parole Commissioner Julie Garland mentioned laws allowed for audio to be launched below the California Public Information Act. Transcripts of parole hearings usually change into public inside 30 days of a grant or denial, below state regulation.
Throughout his first-ever attraction to the state parole board, Lyle Menendez was questioned over his credibility.
Garland referred to Menendez’s attraction to get witnesses to lie, plans to flee, and lies to kin in regards to the killings as a “sophistication of the online of lies and manipulation you demonstrated.”
Menendez mentioned he had no plan on the time, there was simply “quite a lot of flailing in what was occurring.”
“Regardless that you fooled your total household about you being a assassin, and also you recruited all these individuals that can assist you… you don’t assume that’s being a very good liar?” Garland requested.
Menendez mentioned the regret he felt after the crimes maybe helped create a “sturdy perception” he didn’t have something to do with the killings.
Like his brother, Lyle Menendez was denied parole for 3 years, however may very well be eligible to use for an earlier listening to.
After the choice, which got here on the finish of a marathon 11-hour listening to, members of the parole board famous that Menendez had a robust assist system of kin for when he could be launched sooner or later, and in addition counseled the 57-year-old for having no incidents of violence regardless of being in jail for 3 a long time.
However Garland mentioned Menendez nonetheless struggled with delinquent character traits, incidents of deception, and rule breaking.
“We discover your regret is real,” Garland mentioned. “In some ways, you appear like you’ve been a mannequin inmate.”
Garland additionally highlighted what she mentioned was an absence of self-control, impulsiveness and poor decision-making throughout the crimes — together with the brothers’ “callous” resolution to shoot their mom a closing time.
Family members of the siblings mentioned they had been disillusioned within the resolution, however not discouraged.
“The method for parole is exceptionally rigorous, however we’re extremely happy with how Erik and Lyle confirmed up — with honesty, accountability, and integrity,” kin mentioned in a joint assertion. “This isn’t the top of the highway. Each will go earlier than the Board once more, and their habeas petition stays below assessment. Within the meantime, we all know they are going to take time to mirror on the Board’s advice and can proceed to guide, mentor, and construct packages that assist rehabilitation and hope for others.”
Dmitry Gorin, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, mentioned the board’s resolution denying parole was in step with previous choices involving violent crimes.
“Though it is a high-profile case, the parole board rejecting the discharge demonstrates that it seeks to maintain violent offenders locked up as a result of they nonetheless pose a threat to society,” Gorin mentioned. “Traditionally, the parole board doesn’t launch individuals convicted of homicide, and this case isn’t any completely different.
He referred to as the choice a win for Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who has opposed the brothers’ launch.
Gorin additionally characterised the problems with the audio launch.
“They had been promised privateness, they need to anticipate that the state would honor it,” he mentioned. “Everybody deserves a proper to a good listening to and a proper to privateness in step with the state guidelines.”
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, mentioned “there aren’t any winners within the Menendez brothers case, when you’ve got two useless mother and father and two murderers who had been victims of intercourse abuse.”
“Many authorized pundits like myself thought the parole board can be a mere formality and the brothers can be launched in a matter of days or perhaps weeks,” Rahmani mentioned. “However Hochman and his deputy Habib Balian saved their finest argument for final and so they’ll preserve the Menendez brothers in jail, a minimum of for now.”
The brothers had been initially sentenced to life with out the potential for parole for the killings of their mother and father Jose and Kitty Menendez, however after qualifying for resentencing they gained an opportunity at freedom.
Many relations have supported their trigger, however the grotesque crime and the brothers’ conduct behind bars led to pushback towards their launch.
The killings occurred after the brothers bought shotguns in San Diego with a false identification and shot their mother and father within the household lounge.
The bloody crime scene was in contrast by investigators to a gangland execution, the place Jose Menendez was shot 5 occasions, together with as soon as at the back of the pinnacle. Proof confirmed their mom had crawled, wounded, on the ground earlier than the brothers reloaded and fired a closing, deadly blast.
The brothers reported the killings to 911, in accordance with courtroom data. Quickly afterward, prosecutors throughout the trial famous, the 2 siblings started to spend giant sums of cash, together with shopping for a Porsche and a restaurant, which was bought by Lyle. Erik purchased a Jeep and employed a personal tennis teacher.
Prosecutors argued it was entry to their multimillion-dollar inheritance that prompted the killing after Jose Menendez shared that he deliberate to disinherit the brothers.
However throughout the trials, the Menendez brothers and kin testified that the 2 siblings had undergone years of sexual and bodily abuse by the hands of their father.
In distinction to their frenzy round their trial, Thursday and Friday’s parole hearings had been quiet — but sometimes contentious — affairs.
A Occasions journalist was the one member of the general public allowed to view the listening to on a projector display screen in a room contained in the company’s headquarters exterior of Sacramento.
In the course of the Friday listening to, the parole board shortly dove into the allegations that the brothers had been sexually assaulted by their father, which Lyle Menendez mentioned confused and “brought about quite a lot of disgrace in me.”
“That just about characterised my relationship with my father,” he mentioned, including that the worry of being abused left him in a state of “hyper vigilance,” even after the abuse stopped and his father started to abuse Erik.
“It took me some time to understand that it stopped,” Menendez mentioned. “I believe I used to be nonetheless frightened about it for a very long time.”
Rising up, he mentioned, caring for his youthful brother gave him function, and helped to guard him from “drowning within the spiral of my very own life.”
Menendez alleged his mom additionally sexually abused him, however mentioned he didn’t share it throughout his complete threat evaluation as a result of he “didn’t see it as abuse actually.”
“At the moment, I see it as sexual abuse,” he mentioned. “After I was 13, I felt like I used to be consenting and my mom was coping with lots and I simply felt like perhaps it wasn’t.”
Board members additionally questioned Lyle Menendez on why he didn’t point out the chance they had been faraway from their guardian’s will of their submissions to the board, however Menendez contended their inheritance was not a motive within the killings.
As an alternative, he mentioned, it grew to become “an issue afterward” as they frightened they’d haven’t any cash after their mother and father’ deaths.
“I imagine there was a will that disinherited us someplace,” he mentioned.
The results of Thursday’s listening to means Erik can’t search parole once more for 3 years, a call that left some kin and supporters of the youthful brother shocked.
“How is my dad a risk to society,” Talia Menendez, his stepdaughter, wrote on Instagram shortly after the choice was made. “This has been torture to our household. How for much longer???”
Mates, kin and former cellmates have touted the brothers’ lives behind bars, pointing to packages they’ve spearheaded for inmates, together with courses for anger administration, meditation, and serving to inmates in hospice care.
However members of the board questioned each siblings about their violation of guidelines, zeroing in at occasions about repeated use of contraband cellphones.
In the course of the listening to Friday, Lyle mentioned he typically used cellphones to keep up a correspondence with household exterior the jail. However Deputy Parole Commissioner Patrick Reardon questioned this clarification, and requested why Menendez wanted a cellphone if he might make official calls from a prison-issued pill.
The rule violation, board members identified, had resulted in Menendez being barred from household visits for 3 years.
Reardon identified that Menendez pleaded responsible to 2 cellphone violations in November 2024 and in March 2025. Menendez was additionally linked to 3 different violations, though one other cellmate of his took duty for these violations.
Menendez mentioned the violations occurred when he lived in a dorm with 5 different inmates, and admitted the usage of cellphones was a “gang-like exercise.” The group, he mentioned, most likely went via a minimum of 5 cellphones.
Rummel, Menendez’s parole lawyer, argued in her closing that regardless of the mobile phone points, Menendez had no violent incidents on his jail report.
“This board goes to say you’re harmful since you used your cell telephones,” she mentioned. “However there may be zero proof that he used it for criminality, that he used it for violence. He didn’t even lie about it.”
However members of the board repeatedly targeted on what gave the impression to be problems with credibility. Reardon mentioned at occasions it felt like Menendez was “two completely different incarcerated individuals.”
“You appear to be various things at completely different occasions,” Reardon mentioned throughout the listening to. “I don’t assume what I see is that you just used a cellphone once in a while. There appears to be a mechanism in place that you just at all times had a cellphone.”
Garland requested Menendez about whether or not he used his place on the Males’s Advisory Council — a bunch meant to be a liaison on points between inmates and jail directors — to govern others and acquire unfair advantages.
Menendez mentioned the place gave him entry to wall telephones, and used the place to assist him barter or acquire favors.
Garland additionally pointed to an evaluation that discovered Menendez exhibited delinquent traits, entitlement, deception, manipulation and a resistance to just accept penalties.
Menendez additionally mentioned he didn’t agree with an evaluation Garland introduced up that mentioned he confirmed narcissistic traits.
“They’re not the kind of individuals like me self-referring to psychological well being,” he mentioned, including that he felt his father displayed narcissistic tendencies and lack of self-reflection. “I simply felt like that wasn’t me.”
Menendez pointed to his work to assist inmates in jail who’re bullied or mocked.
“I might by no means name myself a mannequin incarcerated individual,” he mentioned. “I might say that I’m a very good individual, that I spent my time serving to individuals. That I’m very open and accepting.”
The parole board applauded Menendez’s work and academic historical past whereas in jail, noting he was engaged on a grasp’s diploma.
Regardless of the violations, Menendez argued he felt he had carried out good work in jail.
“My life has been outlined by excessive violence,” he mentioned, tears seen on his face. “I wished to be outlined by one thing else.”
