Kim Kardashian argued in an essay this week that the Menendez brothers deserve reduced sentences for killing their parents because of their claims of sexual abuse.
Kim Kardashian believes the Menendez brothers should be freed from prison.
The reality star is the latest person to weigh in on the controversial pair of convicted murderers.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles are reviewing new evidence to determine whether the siblings should be serving life sentences for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion more than 35 years ago, the city’s district attorney said on Thursday.
The case is being highlighted in a new Netflix scripted series and an upcoming documentary.
“You think you know the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez”, Kardashian wrote in her opinion essay for NBC News published on Thursday. “I certainly thought I did.”
“In 1989, the brothers, aged 21 and 18, respectively, viciously shot and killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home”, she wrote. “In 1996, after two trials, they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As is often the case, this story is much more complex than it appears on the surface.”
Kardashian is a prison reform advocate who previously worked with the Trump White House to reduce sentences for several convicts found guilty of non-violent offenses. She also spoke at the White House earlier this year about criminal justice.
The mother of four centered the argument in her essay mainly on the brothers’ claims that they were emotionally, physically and sexually abused by their parents and feared for their lives.
“Following years of abuse and a real fear for their lives, Erik and Lyle chose what they thought at the time was their only way out — an unimaginable way to escape their living nightmare”, Kardashian wrote.
She said that after the jury was deadlocked in their first trial, the judge decided many of their abuse claims were inadmissible in the second trial.
