LOS ANGELES : Menendez Friend Says He Suggested Sexual Revelation

An acquaintance of murder defendants Lyle and Erik Menendez testified Wednesday that he once suggested that Erik Menendez strengthen his defense by saying he had a homosexual relationship with a friend.

Mark Slotkin, a contractor who built the Beverly Hills house where the Menendez brothers’ parents were slain, was subpoenaed by prosecutors to testify at a hearing because he may be a witness at the brothers’ retrial.

Slotkin said he told Erik Menendez: “You have a very good opportunity here to prove your father was a very jealous person.”

Slotkin added that the “conversation took place after they had admitted they’d killed their parents and when the subject of abuse came up.”

Deputy District Atty. David Conn said this week that he wanted to “pin down” some of Slotkin’s statements and to “bring out any inconsistencies between what he’s saying now and what he has said.”

The brothers have admitted they killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, but claim they feared for their own lives after suffering years of mental and physical abuse. Erik, 24, and Lyle, 27, are charged with murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shootings in the den of the family’s mansion.

Their first trial ended last year after two juries, one impaneled for each sibling, were unable to reach verdicts. Wednesday’s hearing was held to address various motions in preparation for a retrial in June.

Slotkin said he made the suggestion to Erik because “it was my hypothesis to him suggesting how he might be able to explain certain things.”