A third person—former Menudo star Roy Rosselló—now claims to have been molested by the father of the Menendez brothers, whose murder trial captivated the nation in the ‘90s as they argued they gunned down their parents after enduring years of their dad’s sexual abuse.
The shocking twist was revealed Tuesday on the the Today show, with Rosselló, 51, claiming in a teaser for an upcoming docuseries that he was drugged and raped as a teenager by Jose Menendez, a successful music executive, over three decades ago.
“That’s the man here that raped me,” Rosselló says in a clip, pointing to a photo of the elder Menendez. “That’s the pedophile.”
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The assertion has returned the Menendez brothers’ messy case, which included two mistrials and two hung juries before they were eventually retried and found guilty, to the spotlight.
The brothers, Erik and Lyle, repeatedly argued the killings were in self-defense after their father became enraged when they confronted him at the family’s Beverly Hills home about being molested by him throughout their childhood. Despite their pleas, a Los Angeles jury convicted the brothers in 1996—seven years after the slayings—and consigned them to a life behind bars without parole. All of their appeals were denied.
Included in Tuesday’s clip was a jailhouse phone call with Erik, who said he always believed other unsavory allegations about his father would eventually emerge.
“It's sad to know there was another victims of my father, you know I always hoped and believed that one day the truth about my dad would come out,” Erik said. “But I never wished for it to come out like this...The result of trauma that another child has suffered.”
In a separate call, Lyle said he wishes Rosselló would have testified during his trial, believing his allegations would’ve made “an enormous difference” in getting jurors to believe the brothers’ abuse claims. He added that he’s hopeful the new details may breathe life into a petition that could lead to a new trial.
“The entire trial centered on the beliefs of these events,” Lyle said, referencing his molestation allegations. “Hopefully it will make a difference. You know, you would think in a fair world that it would. Whether we live in that fair world, really, I guess we'll find out.”
Rosselló, who rose to fame in the ’80s with the same boy band that put Ricky Martin on the map, is at the center of the docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed that’s scheduled to begin streaming on Peacock next month. Jose Menendez was a music executive at RCA Records who signed Menudo when Rosselló was just 13—marking the beginning of a period where he and his bandmates were subject to physical, sexual and mental abuse by music promoter and manager Edgardo Díaz, some members claimed in the previously aired docuseries, Menudo: Forever Young. Nobody has ever been criminally charged in connection to those allegations.
Rosselló said in Tuesday’s clip that he was just 14 when Menendez allegedly raped him at his home in New Jersey.
“I know what he did to me in his house,” Rosselló said.
Rosselló’s new allegations apparently irked Milton Andersen, the 88-year-old brother-in-law of Jose Menendez. He reportedly objected to the possibility of Lyle and Erik receiving a new trial when reached by The New York Times.
“They do not deserve to walk on the face of this earth after killing my sister and my brother-in-law,” he told the Times.
