The Menendez brothers’ resentencing hearing has been postponed due to the fires currently raging in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Friday (Jan. 17) that the hearing for Lyle and Erik Mendez, originally scheduled for Jan. 30-31, will now occur on March 20-21.
In a statement, Hochman wrote that this was “due to the impact of recent wildfires on the parties’ extensive preparations for the hearings.”
The fires in Los Angeles have killed at least 27 people and set thousands of structures ablaze. So far, more than 12,000 homes and other structures, have been burned in the fires. Potential losses could reach $30 billion for insurers, according to a recent estimate from Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs.
Last October, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón made an announcement that he’d formally ask the court to resentence the two brothers for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose Menendez and Kitty Menendez.
At the time, district attorney Mark Geragos, who was backed by the brothers' family members, expressed his gratitude for the decision during a press conference, predicting that the brothers’ life sentences without parole would be reduced to the point that they could be home in time for Thanksgiving.
"The family is uniform behind me in their resolve that these boys need to come home," Geragos said. "And today is a monumental, monumental victory on that path."
The sister of the Menendez brothers’ mother, Joan Anderson VanderMolen, previously expressed her support for the brothers, who previously claimed that their father sexually abused them. "The truth is, Lyle and Eric were veiled by the very people who should have protected them, by their parents, by the system, by society at large," Vandermolen said at the time.
"When they stood trial, the whole world wasn't ready to believe that the boys could be raped, or that young men could be victims of sexual violence,” she continued. “Today, we know better. We know that abuse has long-lasting effects, and victims of trauma sometimes act in ways that are very difficult to understand."