Convicted murderer Lyle Menendez has been busted for possessing a cellphone behind bars after striking up an affair with a British college student, according to a report.
Prison officers at the top-security Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego caught Menendez with the phone back on March 15, the Daily Mail reported.
A record of the phone possession is included in outgoing Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s resentencing memo, as Lyle and his brother Erik Menendez’s resentencing hearing looms.
Menendez has also acquired a second phone, according to the Mail, which he uses to keep in contact with his 21-year-old alleged love interest.
The student has allegedly flown out from her home in Greater Manchester in the north of England to visit Menendez behind bars, the newspaper reported.
The brothers were sentenced to life in jail without parole after being found guilty of killing their parents at their Beverly Hills home in 1989, following two controversial trials.
A resentencing hearing for the brothers was scheduled to take place on December 11, but following Gascon’s election defeat to Nathan Hochman, it is likely to be postponed.
The incoming LA County District Attorney has questioned whether his predecessor’s decision to re-examine the high-profile Menendez brothers’ case may have been a “political ploy.”
Hochman defeated Gascon on November 5, several weeks after the progressive LA DA announced his recommendation that the brothers be resentenced and eligible for parole immediately.
Calls for the brothers to be released have ramped up in recent months, following several documentary and television series airing about the case.
On October 24, Gascon then announced that the case would be reevaluated.
“Part of the problem with the Gascón timing of his decision is there’s a cloud over that credibility. Is it a just decision, or was it just a political ploy?” Hochman told ABC News. “There will be no cloud over whatever decision I make.”
Gascon has denied his decision was politically motivated, telling the outlet: “I believe that they should be released and they should be released cleanly within the law.”
“I based my decision on the review of 30 years of ... information about their behavior, as well as a very thorough understanding of what they were convicted of and the elements of the crime,” Gascon said. “So my decision was appropriately based.”
Hochman, who is set to take office on December 2, has said he plans to read through the new alleged evidence, including trial transcripts, confidential prison files and interviews with family, lawyers and law enforcement.
“What these files say is too important an issue to delegate to somebody else. I need to actually do the work myself,” he told ABC, adding that he would work as “expeditiously as possible.”
“I’m not going to ask for delay, just for delay’s sake,” he added. “We’ll ask for the minimal amount of time necessary to do this work, because we owe it to the Menendez brothers, we owe it to the victim’s family members, we owe it to the public to get this decision right.”
