In a forthcoming Peacock docuseries, Roy Rosselló, a former member of the iconic 1980s Hispanic boy band Menudo, has claimed that he was drugged and raped by the late father of Erik and Lyle Menendez.
Infamously known as the Menendez brothers, Erik and Lyle were convicted in 1989 of murdering their parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, at the family’s Beverly Hills Mansion. At the time of the killings, in which Jose was shot in the head and Kitty died from 15 gunshot wounds, Lyle and Erik were 21 and 18 years old, respectively.
During trial, the siblings claimed that they shot their parents in self-defense, following years of sexual abuse from their father, who was the then-head of RCA Records, the label that signed Menudo. Citing irrelevance, however, the judge deemed the defense inadmissible, and in 1996, the Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In a snippet from the upcoming Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed docu-series (released May 12,) Rosselló accuses Jose of sexual assault, noting that he was drugged and raped by the executive as a teenager, stating:
Pointing to a photo of Jose, the now-51-year-old alleges, “That’s the man here that raped me,” “That’s the pedophile.” “I know what he did to me in his house,” claiming that the band’s manager and creator Edgardo Diaz also sexually abused him, and was the person who took him to Menendez’s home, where he was subsequently drugged and raped.
The clip also features a phone conversation with Erik Menendez, who is serving his sentence with his brother at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. “It’s sad to know that there was another victim of my father,” Erik is heard saying on the phone. “I always hoped and believed that one day the truth about my dad would come out, but I never wished for it to come out like this – the result of trauma that another child has suffered.”
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: RobertAvellanet