LYLE, LIKE BROTHER ERIK, IS DENIED A PAROLE

Lyle Menendez, 57, refused parole after murdering parents as board points to his 'anti-social behavior, deception and rule-breaking'

 

By Laura Acton-Taylor

 

Daily Mail

Aug 22, 2025

 

 

Lyle Menendez appeared before the parole board via teleconference on Friday  

 

Lyle Menendez has been denied parole after his younger brother Erik suffered the same fate just a day prior. 

The Menendez brothers fought through a slew of hearings over two days fighting for their release but have now both been denied parole. 

The parole board cited Lyle's 'struggles with anti-social personality traits' as factors in the denial of his parole. 

Lyle, 57, appeared before the parole board virtually from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, California, where the brothers are serving their sentence. 

Parole Commissioner Julie Garland noted Lyle's 'deception, minimization and rule breaking' despite his volunteer work and education while behind bars. 

Both brothers were found to have violated prison rules during their time served for the murder of their parents in 1996. 

Garland told the elder brother that his denial 'wasn't the end,' and added: 'It's a way for you to spend some time to demonstrate, to practice what you preach about who you are, who you want to be. Don't be somebody different behind closed doors.' 

 

A judge earlier this year reduced Erik (right) and his brother, Lyle's, sentences from life in prison without the possibility of parole to 50 years - making them eligible for parole  

 

At the hearing on Friday, Garland noted Lyle's illegal cellphone use in March 2024 costing him family visitation rights, NBC News reported. 

Lyle was found to have used a cellphone behind prison walls from 2018 to November 2024. The elder Menendez brother did not deny the claims, but explained his possession of the cell phone was to keep in touch with family and his community. 

He was also reprimanded for having 31 music CDs as well as a pair of soccer shoes inside his cell in January 2003, the outlet reported. 

Then in May 2013, a prison guard found him with a black lighter, which he claimed had been used for a 'religious ceremony.'

Among other prison rule violations included having 'excessive physical contact' with a female visitor.

On three separate occasions, in July 2001, June 2003 and February 2008, Lyle was reprimanded for touching, kissing, or stroking a female visitor, NBC News reported. 

In the early days of their incarceration, Lyle received a violation for disobeying orders from a correctional officer. 

In August and September of 1996 he 'refused' to come out of his cell, and his actions were reported on the prison system as being 'deemed as a threat to the safety and security of the institution as well as possibly other inmates,' the outlet reported. 

 

Erik Menendez appeared virtually before the parol board on Thursday, where he was denied parole for violations during his prison sentence

 

The two have been campaigning for years, but the board declared they would be denied parole for three years due to their behavior in prison. 

In May, a judge reduced their sentences and they became immediately eligible for parole. The parole hearings marked the closest they have come to winning freedom since their convictions almost 30 years ago.

At the hearing on Thursday, Erik claimed he developed a 'moral guardrail' while inprison, where he earned a bachelor's degree with top academic honors.

But he also said he decided to illegally obtain cellphones, despite the risk of discipline, because he did not believe there was a chance he could ever be released.

He said he took the gamble because the 'connection with the outside world was far greater than the consequences of me getting caught with the phone.'

Erik also told how he decided to associate with a prison gang for his own protection.

That all changed, he claimed, when he realized last year he could be paroled.

'Now, the consequences meant I was destroying my life,' the convict said.

Much of Erik's hearing then focused on their parent's murders and the sexual abuse the brothers claimed they endured. 

Erik admitted at the Thursday hearing that his and his brother's spending spree was an 'incredibly callous act.' Pictured: The Menendez brothers at trial for their parents murder in 1990

 

Erik claimed to the board that he bought firearms 'to protect myself in case my father or my mother came at me to kill me, or my father came in the room to rape me.' 

When he was then asked why he did not just run away or report the abuse to the police, Erik said he felt 'leaving meant death' and he had an 'absolute belief that I could not get away.'

Another commissioner then asked why he decided to also kill his mother. Evidence at the trial showed she had crawled on the floor, wounded, before the brothers reloaded the shotguns they had bought with someone else's ID and fired a final shot.

'When Mom told me… that she had known all of those years, it was the most devastating moment in my entire life,' Erik said, becoming visibly emotional. 'It changed everything for me. I had been protecting her by not telling her.'

'On that night, I saw them as one person,' he continued. 'Had she not been in the room, maybe it would have been different.'

Erik also admitted at the hearing that his and his brother's spending spree was an 'incredibly callous act.

'I was torn between hatred of myself over what I did and wishing that I could undo it and trying to live out my life, making teenager decisions,' he explained.

Erik also used the hearing on Thursday as a chance to apologize to his family.

 

The brothers were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, inside their Beverly Hills mansion

 

'I just want my family to understand that I am so unimaginably sorry for what I have put them through,' he said.

'I know they have been here for me and they're here for me today, but I want them to know, that this should be about them. It's about them, and if I ever get the chance at freedom, I want the healing to be about them.'

In a statement, the Mendendez family said they were disappointed by Thursday's ruling, noting that it was 'not what we hoped for.

'But our belief in Erik remains unwavering and we know that he will take the board's recommendation in stride. His remorse, growth, and the positive impact he’s had on others speak for themselves.

'We will continue to stand by him and hold to the hope he is able to return home soon.'

The brothers were sentenced to life in prison for the shooting of their father, Jose Menendez, and mother, Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion.

Defense attorneys argued that the brothers acted out of self-defense after years of sexual abuse by their father, prosecutors said the brothers sought a multimillion-dollar inheritance.