Inside the celebrity-backed campaign to free the Menendez brothers

You meet the most interesting people in solitary confinement.For former New York mobster Michael Franzese, in prison on a parole violation, those people happened to be Erik and Lyle Menendez, encountered while serving time in a Los Angeles County federal correctional institution.Notorious for having killed their parents – including father Jose, a big shot in show business who they claim sexually abused them – the Menendez Brothers were in the midst of their matching 1996 life sentences without parole. Since 2018, years after meeting Franzese, they have been in Richard J.Donovan Correctional Facility in Southern California.But they not be locked up for long.

There is now a movement afoot for them to have those sentences shortened and for them to be released.It was energized by the Ryan Murphy produced Netflix biographical series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”Dropped this past September, it tells the tale of the murderous brothers, their alleged sexual predator of a father Jose and their laissez faire mother Kitty.

Franzese gave it a rave on his YouTube channel and also stated the brothers “did enough time.”Franzese arrives at this opinion via firsthand knowledge.“Lyle opened up to me and told me about the abuse,” Franzese told The Post.

“I asked him a lot of questions.I have a good BS detector, and I believe that they were abused by their father.”That said, he remembers something strange that came out of Lyle’s mouth in anticipation of not dying behind bars: “I’ll never forget him telling me that [if he gets released from prison] ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without my father.’”Despite everything, Franzese added, “They were so dependent on him.

[Lyle] always expressed love for his father — even though there was the abuse from his father.He said he lived in fear of him.

But he was so much a force in his life.”Now, the former mobster is among a varied cadre of actors, relatives, influencers and others...