Erik Menendez Has Parole Denied | TMZ Live - video Dailymotion

TMZ

Erik Menendez's dream of walking free after spending decades behind bars for the shotgun murders of his parents just went up in smoke ... he's been denied parole!

Transcript

00:00One Menendez brother knows that he is not going to be getting out.

00:04The other is waiting to find out.

00:06As we speak right now, Lyle Menendez is going through his parole hearing.

00:11We don't know the results.

00:12They're still hearing from him and other witnesses.

00:15Right, and they'll be hearing from all the family members.

00:18I'd imagine many, if not all, of the same ones who spoke during Eric's hearing yesterday

00:25where the parole board came back and said they are not recommending parole.

00:30There are a couple of really interesting things here.

00:32One is, especially when you listen to Mark Eragos, who is their lawyer,

00:37that he thought there would be no real reference to the murders themselves

00:42because he said the two issues were rehabilitation and danger to the community.

00:46There was a lot of reference to the murders.

00:49A lot about the murders and a lot about how horrific they were,

00:53especially how they murdered Kitty, and that seemed to impact the parole board.

00:59But the even more surprising thing was what happened behind prison walls.

01:04What we found out about Eric Menendez and his life in that prison

01:10because what we had heard was a lot about all the good that he had done,

01:15and that did come up during the hearing.

01:17And there was a lot of good.

01:18He had a suicide prevention program with his brother.

01:20They were doing rehabilitation of other inmates.

01:23They had an ecology program.

01:25They had a hospice program.

01:27So they did a lot of good.

01:28And those good things came up.

01:30But the parole board also focused heavily on the infractions

01:34that I didn't know that all these things were happening,

01:39that there was a tax fraud ring that apparently Eric was running

01:44on behalf of other inmates.

01:47With a gang.

01:48With a gang.

01:48There was a gang in the prison.

01:50There were cell phone violations, which were honestly a bigger deal than I thought.

01:54I actually, that one surprised me because I hate to say this,

01:57I kind of think that a lot of people in prison have cell phones.

02:00I thought so too.

02:01But it was a big no-no according to the parole board.

02:04Yeah.

02:04There were physical altercations.

02:07There was also inappropriate physical contact.

02:10And it seems like this has to do with Eric's wife.

02:14That there was at least one instance where...

02:17They got too close during a visit.

02:19She had her hand on his inner thigh.

02:21Their nine-year-old kid was there.

02:23And you're not allowed to have that kind of contact.

02:26And Eric said, look, I'm sexually attracted to her.

02:29She's my wife.

02:30We didn't do anything sexual.

02:32But the parole board made a point of it.

02:34Right.

02:35And ultimately denied him parole.

02:37So what weighed more for them?

02:40Was it the infractions or was it the crime?

02:44Because they talked a lot about the crime.

02:47And like you said, it went to the specifics of going out to the car,

02:52reloading the shotgun and coming back in to kill his mother.

02:57I think they talked about both.

02:58But the infractions behind bars, I don't think are as big of a deal.

03:01Even though they were a bit surprising to us that they weren't Boy Scouts

03:04and they weren't just doing these ecology programs and so forth.

03:07The crimes are so horrific.

03:09And when you ask people to go revisit the crimes

03:11in assessing their current danger to society,

03:14you have to go back to not only the crimes, but the cover-up.

03:17The efforts to suborn perjury.

03:19The things that they did to make it look like a mafia hit.

03:22That was all manipulation.

03:24And so the parole board is saying,

03:25are these guys reliable when they're talking to me?

03:27And they want to revisit that as well.

03:30And they came to the conclusion that this guy is still dangerous.

03:32Here's how we're going to know if you're right or wrong.

03:35What I'm told, and again, I was surprised on the Eric side,

03:40but I'm told that Eric doesn't have as many infractions,

03:45excuse me, that Lyle doesn't have as many infractions as Eric.

03:49So if Lyle gets parole, the infractions were more important

03:54because the crime is the same for both of them.

03:57You're 100% right.

03:58If anything, the crime is worse for Lyle.

04:00There were allegations that he was sort of the leader of it

04:02and Eric went along with grudgingly.

04:03So you're right.

04:04If the infractions weigh heavier on the mind of the parole board,

04:07it's a chance that he'll get out.

04:09If not, and the weight goes more towards the crime itself,

04:12I think the result will be the same.

Erik Menendez Has Parole Denied | TMZ Live

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended