Menendezes to Claim Sex Abuse Led to Slayings : Courts: Defense attorney says brothers killed their parents after confrontations that began when Lyle Menendez went to his father and told him to stop molesting Erik.

With Lyle and Erik Menendez set to go to trial next week in the shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents, the case has taken a dramatic turn--the disclosure that the defense will claim the brothers were sexually molested by their father.

For nearly four years, the brothers said nothing about what happened in the living room of the family’s $4-million Beverly Hills mansion--except that they were innocent. Then last month in court, a defense lawyer announced that the brothers had shot their parents and that it was an act of self-defense after years of mental and physical abuse.

Until now, nothing was said about sexual abuse. Prosecutors have stuck resolutely to--and still stick by--their contention that Lyle and Erik Menendez were impatient to collect a multimillion-dollar inheritance.

The case has generated worldwide publicity--already two books and several made-for-TV screenplays are in the works--and the new defense disclosure is likely to intensify that coverage. The story has been a staple of tabloid TV shows. Lyle and Erik Menendez are already so well-known locally that a Los Angeles legal paper ran a story last month about a lawyer jailed for contempt of court with this headline: “Say Hi to the Menendez Brothers.”

Invariably, press reports have described the brothers as tousle-haired Beverly Hills playboys dashing about the world playing tennis.

The stories always note that Jose Menendez was a Cuban immigrant who made his fortune as chief executive of Live Entertainment, a Van Nuys video distribution firm. Friends and relatives told reporters he was a domineering figure obsessed with winning and getting ahead--and making sure his sons would do the same. The same sources called Kitty Menendez a supportive wife and mother.

In an interview, Erik Menendez’s lead defense attorney, Leslie Abramson, said the time had come to detail what she will claim really happened, primarily because she was concerned about the way the press had portrayed the brothers. Lyle Menendez’s lead defense lawyer, Jill Lansing, declined to be interviewed, but sources said she will offer the same defense.

Abramson said Jose Menendez sexually abused his younger son, Erik, for 12 years. He had molested his older son, Lyle, years before, sources allege.

According to Abramson, the brothers killed their parents after a series of confrontations that began when Lyle Menendez went to his father and told him to stop molesting Erik--or the boys would go public, embarrassing the prominent video executive.

“If people would just kick back and think for a minute, there are some fundamental precepts of family life,” Abramson said. “Precept No. 1 is that children love their parents. Good parents do not get shotgunned by their kids. Period.”

Charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, slayings of Jose Menendez, 45, and Kitty Menendez, 47, their sons are set to go to trial July 20 in Van Nuys Superior Court. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Judge Stanley Weisberg has taken the unusual step of using two juries at the same time, one for each brother, because some evidence will relate to only one of the brothers.

The prosecution case promises to be straightforward. It was greed, Deputy Dist. Attys. Pamela Bozanich and Lester Kuriyama allege, that led Lyle and Erik Menendez to kill.

“I have no doubt that these (brothers) must have had a great deal of antipathy for their parents,” said Bozanich, the lead prosecutor in the case. “If your parents are rich and you love them, you generally don’t kill them.

“As far as the allegations that this was a case of self-defense, I think you should watch the evidence we present very carefully,” Bozanich said. She declined to comment further.

The brothers were arrested in March, 1990, and have been held since then in County Jail. A Los Angeles County grand jury issued a murder indictment but declined to include an allegation that the crime was committed for financial gain. Instead, the grand jury accused the brothers of lying in wait and multiple murder.

The key prosecution witness is expected to be Dr. L. Jerome Oziel, a therapist who treated the brothers after the killings. According to court documents, Erik Menendez confessed to Oziel during an Oct. 31, 1989, session.

The case has taken so long to come to trial because of a legal wrangle over a tape Oziel made from his notes of that conversation. The state Supreme Court ruled last year that the tape is admissible and, in a pretrial ruling, Weisberg ordered Oziel to testify. The tape has never been made public.

Abramson would not discuss anything else the brothers may have discussed with Oziel.

Abramson acknowledged that the brothers’ assertions of sexual abuse may be greeted with skepticism because “we haven’t been talking about it from the first day.”

From “Day 1 of each of their lives,” Abramson said, the brothers were “subjected to a system of child rearing that was by its very nature abusive. . . . They were objects for the gratification and the aggrandizement of the parents.”

Witnesses will testify that Kitty Menendez was impatient and intolerant with her children and had uncontrollable rages, Abramson said. “She never called these kids by anything but their names. Never. Not honey, not dear, not sweetie, not goo-goo, not anything but Erik and Lyle.”

When he went to school, Erik Menendez suffered from learning disabilities, the lawyer said. His mother not only refused to let him get help, she routinely “called him dummy and stupid,” Abramson said.

In prior interviews, friends and relatives painted a different picture. They said the brothers were often hugged and that Erik Menendez was extremely close to his mother, who drove her sons to and from tennis practice. Those sources also said Lyle Menendez admired his father so much that he would often brag about his meteoric business rise.

While Kitty Menendez monitored her sons’ schoolwork, Jose Menendez oversaw his sons’ athletic training. Both Lyle and Erik Menendez developed into good tennis players.

Jose Menendez used to keep his younger son on the tennis court until Erik fainted from heat stroke, Abramson said. The father would also smack his son constantly, beat him with a belt, throw him into fences or slam him into glass doors, Abramson said.

Friends and relatives have said no one remembered Jose Menendez hitting either of his sons. “I don’t ever remember Jose spanking those kids,” a relative said in an interview a few years ago. “He should have. Maybe they were not strict enough.”

Abramson described the Menendez home differently. “These kids lived in an atmosphere that was like a training camp,” she said. “Later it was more like a concentration camp once the really ugly stuff began.”

Jose Menendez molested his older son, Lyle, from ages 6 to 8, sources alleged. No one knows why it stopped, sources said. About that same time, Jose Menendez began molesting his younger son, Abramson said.

Experts from all over the country have examined Erik Menendez during the three years and four months he has been in County Jail, Abramson said. He is “a textbook (example) of a sexually molested male.”

Asked if she had doctor’s reports, she declined to say what medical or physical evidence backs her assertions. “Let us just say it was known to certain people,” she said, “and it is corroborated in other methods which we will reveal at trial.”

Batteries of experts--including a psychologist who works with the FBI--have tested both brothers and will be called by the defense to testify that they were sexually abused children, Abramson said. She said she also plans to call experts in the effects of long-term child abuse, but would not elaborate.

Prosecutors have declined to provide specifics of their case. Abramson, however, was willing to go into some detail about how the newly disclosed defense strategy will play out:

The abuse began for Erik Menendez when he also was 6, Abramson said. Over time, she said, “Everything you could imagine that a man could do to a male happened. Including the purposeful infliction of pain.”

Erik Menendez remembers the sexual abuse, Abramson said, and calculates there were more than 300 separate incidents over 12 years.

Several times, Erik Menendez threatened to run away or tried to flee. Jose Menendez also made one thing perfectly clear, Abramson said. He told his son, “If you ever tell, I’ll kill you.”

Abramson said she is convinced that Kitty Menendez knew about the abuse and never told her husband to stop.

The only thing keeping Erik Menendez going, Abramson said, was the hope that when he went off to UCLA in the fall of 1989, he could live in the dorms and be free of his father’s assaults. In mid-August, those hopes were dashed. Jose Menendez ordered his son to sleep at home, Abramson said.

In despair, Erik Menendez confided in his older brother. Lyle Menendez, Abramson said, went to his father and told him to stop the molestation. “Lethality was now on the kitchen table,” Abramson said.

The sons understood “what (the parents’) public image meant,” and what they would “do to protect it,” Abramson said.

Over the next few days, there were a “series of confrontations” that got “worse and worse.” It became “very, very clear to (the brothers) they are about to die,” Abramson said.

On the evening of Aug. 20, there was a final confrontation, Abramson said, declining to say what it was about. “There is a big argument and the shooting occurs at that point,” she said.

Wielding shotguns, Lyle and Erik Menendez stepped into the living room. The lights were off but the TV was on, Abramson said. The sons unloaded a barrage of shots. According to an autopsy, Jose Menendez was hit five times; Kitty Menendez was hit 10 times.

Abramson said forensic evidence will prove the parents were not shot from behind, as has been widely reported. The shots were fired while the brothers faced their parents, she said.

The number of shots is called “overkill,” Abramson said. She said it’s actually consistent with a claim of self-defense. It shows, she said, that Erik and Lyle Menendez fired in terror: “You don’t believe these people can die.”