“Erik and Lyle Menendez’s positive transformation, as well as their ability to find meaning and purpose in their current incarceration, illustrate how much circumstances have changed since the time they were sentenced to life without parole,” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Angeles County. the official paperwork recommends resentencing the nearly three-decade incarcerated siblings who murdered their parents in 1989.

The move, which could free the Menendez brothers within months, was first reported exclusively by Deadline and announced Oct. 24 by District Attorney George Gascón at a downtown news conference. Now the case is before LA Supreme Court Justice William Ryan. If Judge Ryan agrees that the now five-year-olds deserve to be resentenced to 50 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole, then a parole board will have the final say if the brothers walk free from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego.

“The murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez in August 1989, while clearly planned, followed years of alleged sexual and emotional abuse,” said the 57-page motion, which was filed late last night and slightly ahead of the timeline set by D.A. Gascón at Thursday’s press conference. “Removed from the horror of what allegedly happened in the family home, both Erik and Lyle Menendez have shown themselves to be empathetic individuals who care for and participate in the community for the betterment of the collective.”

“Defendants have demonstrated that they no longer pose a risk to public safety … such that their current sentence no longer promotes justice,” added Resentencing Unit Deputy Chief Nancy Theberge and Post Conviction and Litigation Deputy Chief Brock Lunsford , on behalf of their re-election-seeking boss Gascón.

Read the LA DA’s official report against the Menendez brothers here

With that, the cases of Erik Menendez, 53, and Lyle Menendez, 56, received a wave of new attention, largely stemming from new evidence revealed in a Peacock documentary last year, plus a swarm of TikTok videos, advocacy from Kim Kardashian and Very successful nine-part Netflix series by Ryan Murphy Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

The new evidence, which has been in the possession of poll-struggling Gascón’s divided office for nearly a year, includes claims that music executive Jose Menendez sexually abused at least one member of the boy band Menudo in the 1980s. More importantly, there is also a 1988 letter that Erik Menendez wrote to one of his cousins ​​about the repeated sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. The handwritten correspondence was sent eight months before the brothers fatally shot their parents in their Beverly Hills home. “I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy,” Menendez, then 18, wrote to his relative about his “overweight” father’s attacks.

Thursday’s filings also detail the programs and rehabilitation programs, as well as the “self-work” that the Menendez brothers have engaged in during their 30 years behind bars. Those comprehensive programs for himself and fellow inmates include “despite having no documented history of alcohol or substance abuse, Erik Menendez has aggressively engaged in sobriety programming.”

“Both men have made incredible contributions to the prison system as a whole and to their fellow inmates on a very personal level,” prosecutors state.

Although reports of the alleged sexual abuse in Menendez’s home were allowed during the brothers’ first trial (which ended in a mistrial), it was barely mentioned in the second 1996 trial, in which the duo were sentenced to life in prison in prison without parole.

As he has done in recent weeks, Gascón rival for the DA gig wasted no time this week in criticizing the incumbent for his actions in the Menendez case right now.

“He waited until days before the Nov. 5 election, down 30 points in the polls, with articles about how his failed policies have led to additional killings of innocent people, to release his resentencing recommendation.” , said former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Nathan. Hochman said in an Oct. 24 statement. “By releasing it now, Gascón has overshadowed the fairness and impartiality of his decision, leaving Angelenos to wonder whether the decision was right or just another desperate political move by a prosecutor running a losing campaign that goes out of its way to make headlines through a made-for-TV decision. Angelenos and everyone involved deserve better.”

During his press conference yesterday, DA Gascón emphasized that his grudge decision had nothing to do with his political situation. “I’m not going to talk about re-election,” he declared sternly, surrounded by members of the extended Menendez family who supported the brothers’ revenge and release.

We will see on November 5 whether that is the case in this case.