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Background: Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman talks about the resentencing of Erik and Lyle Menendez for the murders of their parents decades ago during a news conference in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025 (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes). Inset (left): Erik Menendez (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation). Inset (right): Lyle Menendez (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation).
Two Los Angeles prosecutors who supported the release of Erik and Lyle Menendez announced that they planned to sue the new district attorney for “harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.”
Brock Lunsford and Nancy Theberge both worked in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office under former DA George Gascón, who lost his reelection bid in November to Hochman. Lunsford oversaw resentencing cases and along with Theberge, the pair pushed in October 2024 for the resentencing of the two convicted murderers based on new evidence. When Hochman took over, he said he’d look into the case. But since he took office, Lunsford and Theberge claimed that they’d been demoted to lower positions as alleged retaliation for their position.
In a letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the attorney representing Lunsford and Theberge, Justin Shegerian, said that the two career attorneys were “just punished,” adding that “they felt that the law said the Menendez brothers should be resentenced. These were two individuals who were just doing their job.” Lunsford, who has been with the DA’s office since 2000, was reassigned to the position of “calendar deputy.” Theberge was sent back to the alternate public defender’s office.
While the LA Times noted that it’s not uncommon for a shift in the staff when a new DA takes office, Lunsford and Theberge claimed that their reassignments went further. The letter stated their intention to sue Hochman and Deputy District Attorney John Lewin for “harassment, discrimination, and retaliation following their recommended resentencing of convicted murderers Eric and Lyle Menendez.”
According to the letter, Lewin allegedly posted defamatory comments about Theberge and Lunsford, allegedly saying of Theberge in a social media post that she “had no interest in justice, wanted to let criminals out of jail and was dishonest in her filings with the Court.” Lewin also allegedly referred to Lunsford as a “quisling,” a term that is generally seen as an accusation that someone is complicit with Nazis.
Lewin was also outspoken about resentencing the Menendez brothers, whose case was reinvigorated by recently released TV shows and documentaries that provided an alternate narrative about their motivations in the 1989 double murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. The veteran prosecutor also sued Gascón; he was one of 20 prosecutors who sued after Gascón reassigned staff when he took office, and Lewin said he was demoted from his position in Major Crimes to the position of calendar deputy — the position to which Lunsford was reassigned when Hochman took office.
Lunsford and Theberge said in the letter that they intend to seek more than $250,000 in economic damages, and over $5 million in “non-economic damages,” according to KTLA, a local Nexstar station that also saw the letter.
In an email to KTLA, Shegerian said, “Nancy and Brock are committed public servants and accomplished attorneys who followed the law — the law they believed required them to advocate for the resentencing of the Menendez brothers. The harassment and retaliation that followed was politically motivated, illegal, and devastating.”