Menendezes Seek to Be in Same Prison

Just days before they are to be sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in state prison, Erik and Lyle Menendez have launched their bid to be imprisoned together for the shotgun murders of their parents.

After Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg formally sentences them on Tuesday, the Beverly Hills brothers ultimately will have to persuade a committee of state corrections officials that they belong together--even though they acted together in crime.

Tonight they take their case to the national court of public opinion during an interview with ABC television’s Barbara Walters.

Being together “is extremely important to them,” Leslie Abramson, Erik’s defense attorney, said Thursday.

While state Department of Correction policy encourages placing family members at the same prison, it usually bars crime partners from going to the same facility, spokeswoman Christine May said.

“It’s going to be evaluated once they’re here,” she said, adding that they are expected at one of the four Southern California reception centers later in July. They will be kept out of contact with friends and family members for about 30 to 45 days.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David P. Conn, the prosecutor who won the retrial, said he has no position on whether the brothers are imprisoned together or apart as long as they receive no special treatment.

Walters broached the subject during the first seconds of the interview, according to a script released Thursday.

“It’s important to you to stay together when you get moved to a state prison?” she asks.

“Very important,” responds Lyle. “That is what has gotten us through these six years. And through our life. The family that Erik and I grew up in, we had to be there for each other throughout, and it really created a bond.”

The interview was taped on Father’s Day at the Men’s Central Jail downtown, where Lyle and Erik have been kept on separate floors since their arrests six years ago for the August 1989 murders of their father and mother.

If the brothers had an agenda for their first interview since their murder trials, it was the future.

Erik, 25, tells Walters on the news magazine “20/20” that he is not sure he can endure a life behind bars without his brother. Lyle, 28, says he has marriage on his mind.

During the television interview, Lyle mentions the woman he says he loves, describing her as a “saint to put up with everything that comes with this.”

He says she is “just someone I met through the mail,” one of the scores of women who barraged the brothers with love letters, marriage proposals and letters of support during their legal odyssey.

“I hope that we can get married, even though it’s a very limited relationship because of where we are. The exchange of love and sharing, it keeps you in touch with yourself and softer,” Lyle says. “You know, otherwise you can become very hard and cold in here.”

The brothers continue to maintain in the interview that they killed their parents out of fear fueled by a lifetime of sexual and psychological abuse.

Erik describes himself as “just a normal kid.” He says the killings are “all my fault” and that “I got Lyle into this.”

He apologized to his parents and forgave them “for anything they have done to us.”