New twist in notorious Menendez brothers murder case as ex-boy band member makes fresh claim of abuse
Roy Rosselló has come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against Jose Menendez
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A former member of the 1980s boy band Menudo has alleged he was drugged and raped by the father of the Menendez brothers, whose trial for murdering their parents electrified the US 30 years ago.
Decades after Erik and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents, former teen pop star Roy Rosselló has come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against the brothers’ father Jose Menendez. Mr Rosselló made the bombshell revelations in a trailer for the upcoming docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, which delves into Roselló’s accounts of the alleged abuse.
Menendez, the head of record label RCA, represented Mr Rosselló’s then-emerging Puerto Rican band Menudo.
Sexual abuse was at the centre of the Menendez brothers’ initial proceedings in 1993, which ended in a hung jury. Their defence argued that they committed the killings after their father threatened to kill them when they said they’d expose him for allegedly abusing them sexually and emotionally for years, while the prosecution portrayed them as privileged young men who killed their parents to inherit their multimillion-dollar estate.
A second jury found the Menendez brothers guilty of first-degree homicide in 1996 after a judge ruled that the sexual abuse argument was inadmissible. They were sentenced to life in prison and their appeals have been denied throughout the years.
In a teaser for the new documentary aired on the TODAY show, Mr Rosselló recounts the alleged assault when visiting Menendez’s Beverly Hills home, where the executive would be killed years later by his sons.
“It’s time for the world to know the truth,” Mr Rosselló, 51, says in the film, set to debut on 2 May on Peacock. “I know what he did to me in his house.”
Reacting to Mr Rosselló’s allegations, Erik Menendez said he regretted hearing another person had been impacted by his father’s alleged abuse.
“It’s sad to know that there was another victim of my father,” he says in a call featured in the series. “I always hoped and believed that one day the truth about my dad would come out, but I never wished for it to come out like this – the result of trauma that another child has suffered.”
The documentary largely focuses on reporting by journalists Robert Rand and Nery Ynclan.
Meanwhile, his brother said that Mr Rosselló’s testimony would have made a difference in their trial. Lyle Menendez even claimed to have some recollection of his father telling one of the Menudo singers that they needed to speak in private.
“Certainly that would’ve made an enormous difference,” Lyle Menendez said in a separate call. “My dad was one of the guys who was choosing and selecting the members of the new group. I remember him taking one of the kids and going off and saying he wanted to talk to him alone and they went off into the house upstairs.”
Jose and Kitty Menendez were killed on 20 August 1989 as they watched TV in their Beverly Hills mansion. Prosecutors said that Jose Menendez was shot six times, while his wife was shot 10 times.
Lyle, then 22, and Erik, 19 at the time, bought two movie tickets for the film Licence to Kill to have an alibi and blamed the mafia for the murders.
They then went on a six-month spending spree with the family’s fortune, until they were taken into custody after their confessions to a psychiatrist were leaked to authorities investigating the murders.
In their 1993 trial, Lyle testified that his father often raped him and his brother. The brothers’ defence also argued that they had been neglected by their mother.
Criminal defence attorney Alan Jackson told the Today Show that the Menendez brothers have to file a petition if they want Mr Rosselló’s account to be admitted as new evidence. However, Mr Jackson noted that the brothers have a complex journey ahead if they seek to have their charges downgraded to manslaughter.
“The petition has to be reviewed by a supreme court judge, the judge has to grant a new trial, and the defence has to win at trial,” Mr Jackson said. “So, those procedural and factual hurdles, that’s a big mountain to climb.”