Jul 08, 2001 · Obituary: Lawyer who defended clients in some of L.A.'s most notorious criminal cases apparently took his own life. He was battling a …
Dec 10, 2007 · DECEMBER 6. Erik Menendez took the witness stand late in the day and began what could be at least a week of testimony about why he and his brother killed their parents. Defense attorney Barry ...
Dec 10, 2007 · Menendez brothers on trial: Evidence of spending spree ... Under questioning by defense attorney Barry Levin, Mahar said the brothers did not act secretive about the purchases, which also included ...
Apr 17, 2015 · April 17, 1996: A jury recommends life in prison without parole for Lyle and Erik Menendez, finding them guilty of murdering their parents
Judge James Albracht, however, ruled that the Menendez brothers had threatened Dr. Oziel's life, thus voiding any claim to confidentiality. After two years of grappling over the issue, the state Supreme Court ruled that only a tape of Dr. Oziel dictating his notes from the session would be admissible as evidence.
Jose Menendez, a 45-year-old Cuban immigrant and self-made millionaire, had dealings throughout the film and music distribution industry, including a production interest in Sylvester Stallone 's "Rambo" movies.
She told Erik that if Lyle "had just kept his mouth shut, things might have worked out in this family.". The brothers took this as proof that their parents were planning to kill them soon. According to the brothers, things remained tense in the Menendez household for the next few days.
Oziel because he knew too much. "I can't believe you did this," Smyth swore she had heard Lyle tell Erik. "I can't believe you told him.
Unexpectedly, their sons Lyle and Eric allegedly burst through the door with 12-gauge shotguns, killing their parents.
If the Menendez brothers had killed their parents for money, their reward had vanished. In September 1994, the Menendez mansion was sold at auction for $1.3 million.
Prosecutor Bozanich depicted the brothers as "vicious, spoiled brats" who had killed their parents out of greed and then lied repeatedly to cover their tracks. When they were caught, Bozanich continued, the pattern of lies grew into elaborate tales of abuse intended to gain sympathy. Even if the unproved allegations of abuse were true, however, the brothers should not go free.
On this day, April 17, in 1996, the third and final jury recommended a life sentence for the Menendez brothers, without the possibility of parole. The double murder had struck most people as especially cold, after all. Armed with shotguns, the brothers, then 18 and 21, had surprised Jose and Kitty Menendez while they sat watching TV ...
On that August night in 1989, the entertainment mogul and his wife were shot a total of 15 times.
It was hard not to notice the money trail that led from the crime scene — a $5 million estate that Elton John and Michael Jackson had each once called home — to the brothers, who spent as much as $700,000 of their inheritance in the months following the murders, according to Vanity Fair. Lyle alone spent $60,000 on a Porsche, ...
Lyle Menendez testified Monday that his mother was “very strange” and frequently violent and that she--like his father--sexually abused him. Until he was 13, his mother would wash his body “everywhere,” he said. She also would invite him into bed with her and he would touch her “everywhere,” he testified.
The defense contends that Jose Menendez molested Erik Menendez--who is scheduled to follow his brother to the stand--from age 6 to 18. Lyle Menendez testified Friday that his father molested him from age 6 to 8. Lyle Menendez said Monday that his father also would punch him in the stomach or whip him with a belt.
In 1989, he said he dated a model whom his mother called a “slut.”. Kitty Menendez claimed the woman was infected with the virus that causes AIDS, he said. As a result, she would not allow her son to eat off the family’s dishes or in the dining room, he said. “I ate off paper plates in the den,” Lyle Menendez said.
And at age 17, he said, when he finally dared to tell his father to “shut up,” Jose Menendez slugged him in the mouth, leaving his lip scarred. His mother’s inappropriate sexual conduct, Lyle Menendez testified Monday, consisted of a variety of physically and emotionally abusive incidents.
Advertisement. When he was a young boy, she would show him pictures of her in a bathing suit or lingerie, he said as Lansing posted on the courtroom bulletin board a photo of Kitty Menendez in a lacy black undergarment. When he was 11, he said, she would go topless in front of him, wear an open robe or go naked.
When he wanted to answer a question, he said, he would raise a stuffed animal paw instead of his own hand. Kitty Menendez, her son said, was often violent and would beat him, kick him and drag him to his room by his hair. Once, he said, she chased him around the house with a kitchen knife. Advertisement.
When he was 11, he said, she would go topless in front of him, wear an open robe or go naked. Sometimes, he said, she would ask him how she looked. It was about then, he said, that he shared her bed and she washed him in the bathtub. There were times, he said, that Jose Menendez also was in bed with them.