OAN Staff Abril Elfi
4:05 PM – Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Erik Menendez, who gained notoriety as the second half of the Menendez brothers, who were charged in 1996 of assassinating their parents—José and Kitty Menendez—has reportedly been hospitalized, with his lawyer now calling for his release ahead of a scheduled August parole hearing.
On Tuesday, his attorney, Mark Geragos, told TMZ that Menendez has been hospitalized with a “serious condition.”
“It’s a serious condition,” Geragos told the outlet.
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He also requested that Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) release him immediately — especially ahead of next month’s parole hearing.
“I just think he should be parole furloughed, I think is the proper term, and he could be medically furloughed in advance of the hearing so that he can work with the parole attorney and get up to speed and be ready and do it and give it his best shot. I think that it’s the only fair and equitable thing to do,” the lawyer said.
Although the attorney did not specify what “serious condition” his client was suffering from, TMZ later confirmed that Menendez is undergoing treatment for kidney stones.
Recently, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic reduced Erik and Lyle Menendez’s sentences from life without parole to 50 years to life on May 13th.
The two brothers have already admitted to killing their parents. Nonetheless, they claimed, at the time, that it was done in self defense after years of sexual assault and no help from their mother.
“I killed my mom and dad. I make no excuses and also no justification,” Lyle said in a statement to the court. “The impact of my violent actions on my family … is unfathomable.”
Prosecutors have argued that the pair should not be released, maintaining that they had planned the shotgun killings specifically in order to access their parents’ fortune.
During the hearing in May, the Menendez brothers gave an emotional statement via video.
The brothers’ cousin, Anamaria Baralt, who has been close with them since they were children, told the judge that her two cousins deserved a “second chance at life.”
“It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “I am desperate for this process to be over.”
The trial resurfaced in May 2023, when the brothers’ attorneys filed a Habeas Corpus petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court, requesting a fresh trial “based on new evidence.”
The new evidence included a letter by Erik.
It was written eight months before the killings and it mentions the purported ongoing molestation, as well as Roy Rosselló’s claim that the boys’ father, José, a successful entertainment executive at the time, drugged and raped him when he was a younger man — back in the 1980s.
Rosselló, who was part of the boy band “Menudo,” still maintains that he was raped by their father — seemingly corroborating the brothers’ arguments regarding the abuse.
By October 2024, the brothers obtained the support of then-Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who formally urged that they be resentenced to 50 years to life, putting them immediately eligible for parole.
However, Gascón lost the November election to District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who later reversed his resentencing recommendation.
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