Erik and Lyle Menéndez are back in the spotlight after Former Menudo boy band member Roy Rosselló accuses their father of rape in documentary.
Erik and Lyle Menéndez, the privileged brothers convicted of shot-gunning to death their wealthy parents, are back in the spotlight. A former member of the boy band Menudo has accused their father of drugging and raping him in a documentary currently streaming on the Peacock network.
Roy Rosselló, who joined the global sensation band in 1983 when he was 13, alleges that José Menéndez drugged and raped him in the family's New Jersey home when he was 14. José Menéndez was a record label executive at the time and was "obsessed," the documentary says, with the band whose popularity helped set the stage for the subsequent rise in boy bands' fame.
The brothers, currently serving life in prison without parole, say in the new documentary series that they remember constantly seeing Menudo members, sometimes at their home or backstage at shows. “I remember (my father) taking one of the kids, saying he wanted to talk to them alone, and they went off into the house upstairs,” Erik said.
In the series, Rosselló points to a photo of José Menéndez and says, “That’s the man here that raped me. That’s the pedophile.”
The Menéndez brothers were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents. It was the second trial for the brothers, who were tried separately. The first prosecution ended in 1993 in mistrials for both brothers after their juries deadlocked.
The brothers had acknowledged killing their parents in 1989 with shotguns as the couple watched television in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers claimed they had been abused for years, and that they acted in fear the abuse would continue.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said the pair were motivated solely by greed and wanted to collect their million-dollar inheritances.
At the brothers' second trials, prosecutors were successful in preventing the abuse claims from being part of the new proceedings.
The rape allegations by Rosselló’s were rejected by Milton Andersen, the brother of Kitty Menéndez, the murdered mother of Erik and Lyle.
"It is absurd," Andersen told Inside Edition. He said the brothers were motivated by nothing except money.
"These two guys were spoiled brats," he said. "They wanted the millions."
