Erik Menendez has reportedly been diagnosed with a ‘serious’ health condition and hospitalised just weeks before a parole hearing he and his brother have long awaited.
The 54-year-old – who along with his brother Lyle, 57, has spent decades in prison for murdering their parents in 1989 – is so ill that his lawyer is urging California’s governor to release him right away.
‘It’s a serious condition,’ Mark Geragos told TMZ.
‘I just think he should be parole furloughed, I think is the proper term, and he could be medically furloughed in advance of the hearing so that he can work with the parole attorney and get up to speed and be ready and do it and give it his best shot.
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‘I think that it’s the only fair and equitable thing to do.’
In an update on Tuesday afternoon, TMZ reported that Erik is being treated for kidney stones.
Geragos said his client’s condition is so serious that Governor Gavin Newsom should release him before the parole hearing scheduled for August 21 and 22.
Though Erik is receiving medical treatment in prison, he presumably would benefit from seeing a specialist outside the confines of the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
The siblings were sentenced to life in prison without parole for shooting dead their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, inside their Beverly Hills home.
Erik and Lyle, then 18 and 21 years old, claimed that their father, who was RCA Records’ chief operating officer, sexually abused them and that their former pageant queen mum turned a blind eye to that. The brothers have argued that their dad threatened to kill them if they told anyone, and that they acted in self-defence.
But prosecutors said the brothers murdered their parents out of greed and pointed to their lavish spending after the killings.
On May 13, the brothers were resentenced to 50 years to life in prison, which made them eligible for parole.
The final decision on if the Menendez brothers are suitable for parole lies with Newsom.
On Sunday, the Democratic governor spoke about the case with Ryan Murphy, who created the Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
The governor said he has not watched the Netflix show in order to avoid it influencing his decision on whether the brothers should be freed.
‘I’m going to see if I made the right decision,’ Newsom said with a laugh.
‘Like, “Jesus, I should’ve watched this before.”‘
Newsom could also seek to grant the brothers clemency, but has said he will hold off until their last parole board hearing to make that decision.
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