Kim Kardashian calls for Menendez brothers’ release, points to sexual abuse allegations: ‘No monsters’

Kim Kardashian believes the Menendez brothers should be released from prison.

The reality star is the latest to speak out about the controversial convicted murderers.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles are reviewing new evidence to determine whether the siblings should serve life sentences for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion more than 35 years ago, the city’s district attorney said Thursday.

The case will be explored 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 Thursday. “I definitely believed that.”

“In 1989, the brothers, ages 21 and 18 respectively, brutally 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 at first glance.”

Kardashian is a prison reform advocate who previously worked with the Trump White House to reduce sentences for several convicts convicted of nonviolent crimes. She also spoke about criminal justice at the White House earlier this year.

The mother of four focused most of her essay’s argument on the brothers’ claims that they were emotionally, physically and sexually abused by their parents and feared for their lives.

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“After years of abuse and genuine fear for their lives, Erik and Lyle chose what they believed at the time was their only way out – an unimaginable way to escape their nightmare,” Kardashian wrote.

She said that after the jury deadlocked in the first trial, the judge in the second trial ruled that many of her abuse claims were inadmissible.

“Their only way out of prison now is death,” Kardashian said, writing that their first televised trial had become “entertainment for the nation” and that they were portrayed by the media as “monsters and sensational eye candy.” “two arrogant rich kids from Beverly Hills who killed their parents out of greed.”

“There was no room for empathy, let alone sympathy,” she noted.

“After years of abuse and genuine fear for their lives, Erik and Lyle chose what they believed at the time was their only way out – an unimaginable way to escape their nightmare.”

—Kim Kardashian

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“Against this background, Erik and Lyle had no chance of a fair trial,” claimed the 43-year-old, adding that male victims of sexual abuse were stigmatized at the time.

“Can anyone seriously deny that the justice system would have treated the Menendez sisters more leniently?” She posited, adding: “Many people believe that the crimes the brothers committed are unforgivable – but what about the decades of alleged abuse what they suffered as children?”

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She said she recently spent time with the brothers, who she said had “exemplary discipline” in prison.

They “are not monsters. They are kind, intelligent and honest men,” she argued.

Kardashian also said one of the prison guards told her he would be comfortable having the brothers as neighbors.

While Kardashian called her parents’ murders “inexcusable,” she said the brothers were being treated more like “serial killers” than two men who “endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of the very people they loved and trusted.” .

She added: “I do not believe that spending her entire natural life in prison was the right punishment for this complex case. Had this crime been committed and tried today, I believe the outcome would have been completely different.”

“I also firmly believe that they were denied a fair second trial and that the exclusion of crucial abuse evidence denied Erik and Lyle the opportunity to fully present their case, further undermining the fairness of their sentencing.”

However, not everyone agrees with Kardashian’s assessment.

“If they were retried today, they would be found guilty,” Clark Fogg, a retired senior forensic scientist with the Beverly Hills Police Department who investigated the murders, told Fox News Digital this week.

Fogg believes the brothers’ motive for the murders had to do with “greed and money.”

“Why did they have to kill their mother anyway?” Fogg said. “If you killed Mr. Menendez separately from her, she would end up with the inheritance, right? So they had to eliminate both of them to get the inheritance.”

Fogg investigated the Menendez brothers’ case in 1989. He took photographs and preserved evidence at the crime scene, attended the autopsies and took the witness stand during both trials.

When he spoke to Fox News Digital, he painted a horrific picture of the crime scene.

“One of the investigators actually had to hold a golf umbrella over my head while I was taking photos because things would fall from the ceiling every now and then,” Fogg said.

“It depends on one thing. The reason they are in prison is because they brutally killed their mother and father, not poisoning them, but shooting them so that they reached the ceiling. … That’s how brutally they were murdered.”

Fogg said it appeared her mother was trying to escape when she was killed because there was blood on the soles of her shoes.

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“Even at that point, they kept killing them with … shots, one after the other,” he told Fox News Digital.

Mollie Markowitz of Fox News Digital and The Associated Press contributed to this report.