A former member of 1980s boy band Menudo claims he was sexually assaulted as a teenager by the father of the Menendez brothers in a new docuseries. The brothers said at trial that their father's abuse is what led them to kill their parents.
It was a gripping case that was one of the first to draw a daily national audience to a televised criminal trial. Two affluent young men were charged three decades ago with murdering their parents by marching into the den of their Beverly Hills mansion with shotguns and unloading more than a dozen rounds on their mother and father while they sat on the couch.
It is unclear what impact, if any, Rosselló’s account will have on efforts by defense lawyers to secure a new trial for the brothers, whose prior appeals have been denied. Rosselló has previously described being sexually abused as part of Menudo. Others have also said they were verbally, physically, emotionally and sexually abused as part of the band in the four-part HBO Max docuseries “Menudo: Forever Young.” No one has ever been criminally charged in connection to the allegations.
The Menendez murders drew wide public attention, in part because the brothers had been children of affluence. Lyle Menendez was attending Princeton at the time of the killings. Erik Menendez was pursuing a career in professional tennis. Prosecutors presented them as coldblooded killers, interested in getting unfettered access to their parents’ $14 million estate.
As the first trial neared, the brothers’ defense lawyers came forward with their own explanation for the crimes: that Lyle Menendez had confronted his father about the family’s sex abuse secrets, that his father had become enraged and threatening, and that the brothers had killed out of concern for their lives.
“Can you give us the name of one eyewitness to any of the sexual assaults that took place in that home,” the lead prosecutor, David Conn, repeatedly asked Erik Menendez as he ticked through the places the brothers had lived.The defense also did not present at trial anyone beyond the brothers who described Jose Menendez as a sexual predator.
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