Former boy band member Roy Rosello made an astonishing claim as he hit out at the Los Angeles District Attorney for dismissing the Menendez brother’s sexual assault claims.
Rosello, now 54, came forward in 2023 with allegations that he was sexually by Erik and Lyle Menendez’s father, RCA Records executive Jose Menendez, when he was just 14 years old and a member of the Menudo boy band.
He later included the allegations in a habeas corpus petition calling for Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, to be resentenced with the hope that they could receive time served for the more than three decades they spent behind bars for killing their parents inside their Beverly Hills mansion in August 1989.
The brothers have repeatedly claimed they were sexually assaulted by their father -which Rosello now says he witnessed firsthand – and acted in self defense.
With that in mind, former Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon recommended resentencing the brothers before he lost re-election in November.
But the new district attorney, Nathan Hochman, announced on February 21 that he was brutally opposed to resentencing the brothers.
He said Rosello’s allegations were ‘not admissible’ because it has no bearing on the brothers when they killed their parents, Jose and Kitty.
‘Sexual abuse in this situation may have been a motivation for Erik and Lyle to do what they did, but it does not constitute self-defense,’ Hochman said at a news conference.
Roy Rosello came forward in 2023 with allegations that he was sexually by Erik and Lyle Menendez’s father, RCA Records executive Jose Menendez, when he was just 14 years old and a member of the Menudo boy band
He later included the allegations in a habeas corpus petition calling for Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, to be resentenced
Rosello now says the justice system failed the brothers.
‘The DA want[s] to cover the mistakes they did in the past,’ he told the US Sun.
‘One fatal mistake… was that society was not ready to understand that mens [sic] and boys are abused as well. And the society and the Justice Department never… saw and ignored the victims completely,’ Rosello claims.
‘But now the mentality of people are changing.’
He went on to argue that the brothers never deserved to be sentenced to jail and slammed Hochman for his remarks about the new evidence.
‘For him it is “untrustworthy,” but for me it is! I was there,’ Rosello astonishingly claimed.
‘And it was not only once.’
The singer has said that Jose Menendez assaulted him several times after Menudo signed to RCA Records in the 1980s.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced on February 21 that he was brutally opposed to resentencing the brothers.
In a 2023 Peacock documentary, Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,’, Rosello detailed how he was just 13 when he first met Jose.
‘That’s the man here that raped me. That’s the pedophile,’ he said in the documentary, pointing to a photo of Erik and Lyle’s father.
‘It’s time for the world to know the truth.’
Rosello went on to claim that he visited Jose at his New Jersey home and was handed a glass of wine before losing consciousness.
‘I was in terrible pain for a week. I could barely stand the pain. I couldn’t even move,’ he said, before describing how he woke up bleeding in a New York City hotel room.
Rosello also detailed the encounter in court documents supporting the Menendez brother’s habeas petition, but Hochman said it – as well as a letter Erik wrote to his cousin in which he said he was still being raped by his father eight months before the murders – had no bearing on the case.
In a 2023 Peacock documentary, Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,’, Rosello detailed how he was just 13 when he first met Jose
The Menudo band (picutred) had signed a contract with RCA Records
‘The jury was not asked to decide if the Menendez brothers were seriously abused by their father and their mother failed to stop it, only if the Menendez brothers committed these murders willfully, deliberately and with premeditation in self-defense,’ he wrote in an informal response, according to CBS News.
He added that the habeas petition ‘provides no additional evidence at all concerning this key issue at trial about self-defense and Petitioners’ mental state the night of August 20, 1989, when they executed and shotgunned their parents over 12 times to their deaths.’
Hochman also claimed the Menendez brothers lied on several occasions after their parents’ deaths, with evidence suggesting they planned their murders.
He accused the brothers of asking their friends to make false testimonies – including asking one of their girlfriends to say their father raped her – came up with alibis, drove down to San Diego to buy guns using a fake ID and staged the scene.
As for the letter Erik wrote to his cousin, Hochman said both the cousin and Erik testified at trial about discussing the abuse allegations – but neither of them made mention of the 1988 letter.
Instead, Hochman said, they only testified to speaking about the sex abuse allegations six years earlier, when they were children.
He argued that it ‘defies common sense’ that they would not mention the letter, which was sent just a few months before the parents were found dead.
Erik and Lyle were sentenced in 1996 with the murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty
Hochman is now urging the Los Angeles Superior Court to reject the habeas petition – a decision which the surviving relatives of the Menendez brothers slammed.
‘District Attorney Nathan Hochman took us right back to 1996 today,’ they said in a statement, referring to when the brothers were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
‘He opened the wounds we have spent decades trying to heal.
‘We are profoundly disappointed by his remarks, in which he effectively tore up new evidence and discredited the trauma they experienced.
‘Abuse does not exist in a vacuum,’ the family added. ‘It leaves lasting scars, rewires the brain and traps victims in cycles of fear and trauma.
‘Our hope now rests with Judge Jesic, that he will examine the evidence in their case without prejudice, carefully adhering to California law with modern understanding of trauma.’
The brothers are now set to appear in court on March 20 and 21 for hearings to determine whether they have been rehabilitated in prison. It will not deal with the facts of the case.
At the same time, the brothers are also pursuing clemency from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and a new trial.
Newsom also announced last week he has ordered the state parole board to investigate whether the brothers would pose a risk to the public if they were to be released.
The board will undertake a ‘comprehensive risk assessment’ into whether the brothers have been rehabilitated.
Newsom said he wants the parole board to finish its risk assessment within 90 days, after which there will be hearings allowing the victims’ family members and prosecutors to participate in the process.
The goal, Newsom said, is to make sure the state is doing its due diligence and ensuring transparency.
