Menendez brothers demand Los Angeles DA recuse himself or be disqualified in resentencing case
The attorney representing convicted murderers Erik and Lyle Menendez has taken action to try to disqualify Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman and his office from representing the state in the brothers' resentencing case.
Attorney Mark Geragos and his cocounsels filed paperwork on Friday announcing a motion to disqualify Hochman's office, citing a "conflict of interest." The motion is before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic, who is presiding over the matter.
The brothers, who are currently serving life without parole for killing their parents in 1989, are fighting for reduced sentences.
The next scheduled hearing date in the case is May 9.
"This motion is brought under the constitutions of the United States and the State of California as well as California Penal Code 1424, and is made on the grounds that, absent recusal, a conflict of interest would render it likely that the defendants will receive neither a fair hearing nor fair treatment through all related proceedings," according to the document announcing the motion to disqualify.
If the motion is not granted, Geragos will request an evidentiary hearing to show the court that the conflict of interest exists and plans to call Hochman and several others to testify.
The motion centers around an attorney recently hired by Hochman to work in the district attorney's office.
Last October, former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon announced that he was considering a request for resentencing of the Menendez brothers.
Shortly thereafter, more than 20 Menendez family members who support the resentencing met with deputy district attorneys Nancy Theberge and Brock Lunsford.
The single family member who objected and did not attend the meeting, Milton Andersen, filed an amicus brief through his attorney, Kathleen Cady, opposing the resentencing.
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After Hochman defeated Gascon on Nov. 5 of last year, Hochman began restaffing his office with those who opposed the Menendez brothers' resentencing, according to the document filed by the brothers' attorneys.
Geragos said that Hochman intentionally reassigned Theberge and Lunsford, viewed as Menendez sympathizers, to another office. He also said that Hochman hired Cady, who represented the sole Menendez family member against the resentencing, to head the district attorney's Office of Victims' Services, despite recognizing a conflict of interest Cady had in the case.
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The document said that Cady's conflict of interest extends outside the courtroom, too.
She is, according to Geragos, a board member of a group called Justice For Murdered Children, and on April 13, the group held a rally headlined by Hochman. During that rally, the group condemned the Menendez brothers' resentencing.
The document also claimed that Cady has ignored the Menendez family members in her official capacity in the Victims' Services office, and that, in violation of victims' services law, she did not warn them of gruesome imagery from the murder scene that would be displayed during an April 11 hearing in the resentencing proceedings.
Fox News Digital reached out to Hochman's office.
Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their mother, Mary "Kitty" Menendez, and their father, Jose Menendez, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. They argued that years of sexual abuse at the hands of their father led to the slayings.
In 1994, their first trial ended in a mistrial. They were convicted after a second trial in 1996. They have spent 35 years behind bars.
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