Menendez Brother Cut Leg Irons, Deputies Say

A chain binding the legs of Lyle Menendez, accused with his brother, Erik, of murdering their wealthy parents, was found cut nearly through in a Santa Monica courtroom lockup Friday in what sheriff’s deputies reported as an escape attempt, authorities said.

However, Lt. William Sieber of the sheriff’s fugitive warrant escape detail said he did not know whether the incident constituted an escape attempt.

“We simply know that the (leg) chain was tampered with and with individuals of this profile it has to be looked into . . . two of the links of the chain had been cut.”

The brothers had been waiting for a morning hearing before Superior Court Judge James Albracht when a deputy, who was removing Lyle’s leg chain, noticed that the second link on each end of the chain had been cut nearly through, Sheriff Sgt. Bob Stoneman said.

“It was cut to the point that all it could take was pressure by stepping on it,” Stoneman said.

Later, deputies searched the County Central Jail cells where the brothers are held and found handwritten documents that may be evidence of an escape attempt and filed an attempted-escape report, a sheriff spokesman said. However, no cutting tools were found, Sieber said.

Authorities said they will not know until the handwritten notes are analyzed if Erik was involved.

Sieber noted that both brothers were still wearing waist chains in the lockup when the deputies noticed the damaged leg chain. He said if they had tried to escape, “They would have had to run like penguins.”

Lawyers representing the brothers discounted the escape attempt report.

“It wasn’t cut through,” said Gerald Chaleff, who represents Lyle. “There is no evidence that they found anything like that. Nobody mentioned to me that anyone had cut through any chains.”

Erik’s attorney, Leslie Abramson, said the judge informed the lawyers around lunchtime that a sheriff’s sergeant had advised him that deputies had discovered a “defective” link.

“Then, the chains were miraculously whipped downtown before we could look at them,” Abramson said. “There never was any evidence that Lyle was sawing his chains at any time. For all we know they found a defective link in a chain.

“They subjected the boys to very vigorous searches at the courthouse this morning. They did not find anything. . . . I do not believe for a second that Lyle or Erik created whatever defect might have been in the chain. And I find this whole thing remarkably suspicious.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Elliott Alhadeff, the prosecutor, said he really did not know much about the escape-attempt report.

“It appears the sheriff is taking it seriously,” he said.

The brothers have been held since their arrest in a high-security area of the jail, and no additional security measures have been taken in light of the alleged escape attempt.

Lyle, 22, and Erik, 19, were arrested by Beverly Hills detectives in early March and charged with murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, in their Beverly Hills mansion Aug. 20. The brothers pleaded not guilty.

No date has been set for their preliminary hearing as the prosecution and defense jockey over what evidence can be made public.

The brothers were brought to court Friday for a hearing requested by a psychologist on whether the tapes of a psychotherapy session should be returned to him.

Unlike the morning session when they wore civilian clothing, the brothers were returned to court in the afternoon wearing jail blues.

Judge Albracht barred the public from the courtroom Friday, rejecting appeals for admission from media attorneys and relatives of the defendants. Lawyers from both sides met with him behind closed doors to discuss the controversial tape recordings, said to be the prosecution’s key evidence.

The judge said he believes there is a “legal necessity for closing most of these proceedings,” despite objections from lawyers representing three major news organizations that the action was both unwarranted and unconstitutional.

Cardboard was placed over the windows and an armed sheriff’s deputy was stationed outside the door, as lawyers began wrestling with the issue of whether taped conversations between the two defendants and their psychologist are confidential.

Psychotherapy sessions are usually confidential, but prosecutors argued that threats allegedly made by the defendants in conversation with their Beverly Hills psychologist, Jerome Oziel, cancel out any requirement of confidentiality.

The audiotapes were among evidence seized in a search of the psychologist’s Sherman Oaks home in March, hours before the arrest of Lyle Menendez. Erik surrendered to authorities several days later.

The tapes allegedly contain statements implicating the brothers.