Menendez Brothers’ Resentencing Recommendation Kept in Place (1)

The Menendez brothers will face a judge May 13 and 14 to determine if they should be resentenced for the 1989 killings of their parents, after a judge denied a request to withdraw a former district attorney’s sentencing recommendation despite a new risk assessment report.

The green light is the latest chapter in the brothers’ resentencing saga after a series of stops and starts. Several family members are expected to testify next week on Erik and Lyle Menendez’s behalf. It’s not yet clear whether the brothers will take the stand.

Attorney Mark Geragos withdrew his motion to recuse Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman from the case, which argued Hochman had a personal vendetta against the brothers—but not before he and attorney Bryan Freedman accused Hochman on Friday of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a crisis PR firm to attack the brothers and their family.

Judge Michael V. Jesic, of California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, quickly shot down the accusations, saying they came without notice. Hochman responded the firm was hired for his campaign and he hasn’t done business with it since winning his seat in November. He added the arguments are “100% absurdly false, and defamatory if this was done outside the courtroom.”

Hochman in a news conference after the hearing called the recusal motion “so devoid of merit” that Geragos “didn’t even have the judge rule on the motion, because they must have known the judge was going to deny the motion.”

Freedman said he plans to file a new motion under state victims rights law against Hochman, and Geragos shot back at the prosecutor in a separate post-hearing news conference.

“Somebody said in there, ‘Did you pull the recusal motion because they’re so lame, or he’s so lame?’” Geragos said. “And I said, ‘Don’t be mean. Don’t say that about Mr. Hochman.’ But no, I wanted to get a fulsome record. We still have subpoena power and we’ll get the fulsome record.”

‘Difference of Opinion’

Jesic tossed a renewed bid from Hochman to withdraw the resentencing recommendation of former DA George Gascón. Hochman’s request relied on a new draft risk assessment report prepared by psychologists during the brothers’ separate ongoing clemency hearings.

Jesic said its findings don’t add “anything new in the factual basis” to reach the high bar needed to withdraw the recommendation.

The report comes with “so many caveats” and the brothers’ defenders wouldn’t have a chance to cross-examine its authors, Jesic said.

Hochman disagrees with Gascón that evidence of their fathers’ sexual abuse and their work advocating for other inmates merits a sentence reduction. He’s maintained the brothers are lying and haven’t taken responsibility for killing Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home.

Hochman’s move to argue most of his office’s positions in court Friday was a rare one and comes about half a year into his tenure as DA.

“It tells you that he wants credit, to the extent it goes his way,” said Stephen Cazares, a defense-side partner with Foundation Law Group and former federal prosecutor.

Hochman also said Friday the report shows the brothers broke prison rules to use cell phones in January while the resentencing motion was pending, saying it shows “entitlement” and a willingness to break rules.

“If ever there was a time where they’d want to be clean of any rule violations” it would be during their resentencing process, Hochman said.

He also said the new report described the brothers helping other inmates engage in tax fraud. That was 15 years ago, Geragos responded.

Jesic said it would take something “to shock you,” like revelations of prison gang membership or a homicide, to get him to toss a resentencing process initiated by a former DA.

“You don’t want a difference of opinion to undo months or years of what inmates have gone through,” Jesic said.

The case is People v. Menendez, Cal. Super. Ct., No. BA068880-01 and BA068880-02, 5/9/25.