A cousin of Lyle and Erik Menéndez is criticizing the district prosecutor of Los Angeles County, Nathan Hochman, accusing him of being “hostile, derogatory and condescending” to the family and asking them to withdraw it from the case.
The premium, Tamara Goodell, said that Hochman’s conduct “eroded any remaining confidence” in the district prosecutor and she wants the case to deliver the Office of the Attorney General.
During the meeting of January 2 of Hochman with more than 20 members of the Menéndez family who want to free the brothers, the relatives emotionally shared their “trauma and suffering in progress,” said Goodell in a letter last week to the civil rights division of the Office of the United States prosecutor. But she said that Hochman “proceeded to verbal and emotionally reaumatize the family by being ashamed of not listening to their public press reports.”
This combination of two reserve photos provided by the California corrections department shows Erik Menéndez, on the left and Lyle Menéndez.
California corrections department through AP
The “hostile, derogatory and condescending tone of Hochman created an intimidating and intimidation atmosphere, leaving us, the victims, more distressed and feeling humiliated,” he said.
Goodell claimed that Hochman focused on how he was treated instead of the victims.
“The lack of compassion was palpable, and the family felt not only ignored but more intimidated and revictimized,” he said.
Goodell cited their rights as a victim under Marsy’s law, the California Rights Declaration for victims, specifically pointing out that it establishes that a victim has the right to “be treated with equity and respect” and be “free of intimidation, harassment and abuse.”
A day after that initial meeting with Hochman, Goodell said that she and her son met with Hochman, other prosecutors in the prosecutor, the lawyer of the brothers and the family’s lawyer, and said that he left that meeting feeling “without taking into account and not respected.”
Goodell said that when he raised concerns about the impartiality of the Office of the Prosecutor’s Office, Hochman “stirred, derogatory and aggressive of visibility.”
The district prosecutor of Los Angeles, Nathan Hochman, speaks outside the Los Angeles Justice Hall on December 3, 2024.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP through Getty Images
Goodell said his son witnessed the “abusive, belittled and non -professional behavior, further aggravating the emotional toll of our family.”
Goodell also claimed that Hochman said the brothers’ lawyer “has represented” horrible people. “” Inappropriate comment reinforced his bias, “said Goodell.
In addition to asking that Hochman be eliminated and the case delivered to the Office of the Attorney General, Goodell said that Hochman “is responsible” for his behavior.
She said she also wants Kathleen Cady, who was appointed by Hochman as director of the Victims Office of the DA, eliminated from the case and the representative “a new and impartial” assigned to victims’ services.
Cady was previously Milton Anderson’s lawyer, Menéndez’s only relative by pressing to keep the brothers in prison. Anderson died last week.
Goodell said that when he raised his concerns about Cady at the second meeting in January, “Hochman dismissed me coldly” and “interrupted me, speaking in a condescending and hostile way.”
Hochman said in January that Cady is “walled in the Menéndez case.”
He declined to comment on the Goodell Chart.
The Menéndez brothers are fulfilling life imprisonment without the possibility of probation for the 1989 murders of their parents José and Kitty Menéndez. Lyle and Erik Menéndez, who were 21 and 18, respectively, at that time, admitted the murders, but said they acted in self -defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father.
Lyle, on the left, and Erik Menéndez sit in the municipal court of Beverly Hills, where his lawyers delayed declare in the name of the brothers who are suspected in the murders of their parents on March 12, 1990.
Nick UT/AP
The brothers are following three possible paths towards freedom.
One is a request for clemency to the governor of California Gavin Newsom. The governor announced in February that he is ordering the Board of Probation to carry out a 90 -day risk assessment investigation on whether the brothers represent “an unreasonable risk for the public” if clemency and released are granted.
Another path is a request for habeas corpus that the brothers presented in 2023 for a review of two new evidence not presented at the trial. Hochman in February asked the court to deny the request of habeas corpus, arguing that the new evidence was not credible or admissible, and saying that his statements of sexual assault do not justify killing their parents in self -defense.
The third is the resentment.
In October, the then District Prosecutor of County De-La George Gascón announced that it recommended that the life sentence of the brothers be withdrawn without the possibility that probation was eliminated, and that they should be sentenced by murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life imprisonment. Because both brothers were less than 26 years old at the time of crimes, they would be eligible for probation immediately with the new prayer.
The Prosecutor’s Office said that their resentment recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work that Lyle and Erik Menéndez did behind bars to rehabilitate and help other inmates.
It is expected that Hochman, who became a day in December, releases his position on resentment imminently. He is holding a press conference at 10 am local time on Monday.
Kaitlyn Morris of ABC News contributed to this report.
