The story behind the therapist in the Menendez brothers case

IHow important is doctor-patient confidentiality in a murder trial? The answer can be complicated.

By Ryan Murphy Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendezwhich will stream Sept. 19 on Netflix, tackles this question in a dramatization of the real-life saga of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 of the Aug. 20, 1989, murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion.

The question at the heart of the murders was not whether the Menendez brothers had shot their parents, but because Prosecutors argued that the men wanted to keep their inheritance, noting that they spent a lot of money in the months after their arrest. The defense argued that the men had an abusive father and acted in self-defense. Americans followed the proceedings through Court TV, which was barely two years old but helped popularize the true-crime genre by broadcasting the trial.

The story of Lyle and Erik Menendez It begins with Jose and Kitty’s funeral, before jumping a couple of months forward, when the police are still investigating the murders. Lyle (Nicholas Chavez) and Erik (Cooper Koch) live in the same Beverly Hills house, and Erik is shown growing increasingly anxious about his circumstances. He calls his therapist Jerome Oziel (Dallas Roberts) and asks if he can come see him. Erik reveals that he’s been haunted by nightmares and has felt suicidal. They take a walk, and eventually Erik begins to sob and confesses that he and his brother shot his parents. Oziel walks Erik back to his office, where Erik shares everything that led him and Lyle to kill their parents. In flashbacks, we see how Jose had been a domineering and abusive father, yelling at Erik on the tennis court, throwing plates while drunk and raging, while Kitty stepped in only to help the abuse. After witnessing one particularly bad incident, in which Kitty became so angry at Lyle that she ripped out his hair replacements from his scalp, Erik tells Oziel that he was motivated to protect his brother above all else. The idea to kill his parents, he says, came from a movie.

As Erik grows angrier, an alarmed Oziel calls Lyle and threatens to kill him. Oziel repeatedly assures them that their conversations will remain confidential.

What happened to Erik’s confession to the therapist?

In fact, the conversation became a key piece of evidence in the Menendez brothers’ case. Five months after Lyle and Erik spoke to Oziel in his office, the therapist’s mistress, Judalon Smyth, alerted police to Erik’s confession.

In the show, Oziel runs out of the therapy session to a pay phone and begs Smyth (Leslie Grossman) to come in so he can have a witness when Lyle arrives. She is seen in his waiting room and later has her ear pressed against Oziel’s office door as Erik confesses to the murder. In the second episode, Oziel explains to Smyth that he will keep Erik’s confession in a safe deposit box and give her the key. Smyth says that Oziel has to go to the police because the boys threatened her life and begins to have a panic attack because she fears that the boys are after her as well.

Smyth, in real life, finally went to police in March 1990, after she and Oziel broke up, and reported that she had overheard the brothers confessing to the murders to their therapist.

On August 7, 1990, a California judge ruled that conversations between the therapist and the Menendez brothers, Erik, 19, and Lyle, 22, could be used as evidence in his murder case because the brothers were believed to have threatened the therapist. The threat, the judge said, constituted an exception to the court rule that conversations between therapists and patients are confidential. Authorities seized tapes of counseling sessions as part of a warrant to search Oziel’s home. Over the next two years, there was a legal battle over the tapes, but a 1992 California Supreme Court ruling found most of them admissible.

In 1993, Smyth created another element of drama in the case when she recanted her story, claiming she had been brainwashed, and ended up testifying for the defense, determined to do everything possible to discredit Oziel.

In 1996, the Menendez brothers were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and are serving life sentences in prison.

Where is Jerome Oziel now?

Jerome Oziel has not been licensed to practice psychology since 1997.

The California Board of Psychology held that Oziel improperly shared information about the Menendez brothers case with Smyth, and Oziel surrendered his license rather than challenge it in court.

The board also accused him of sexual misconduct with female patients, something Oziel denied. He then held seminars to help women have more satisfying personal relationships.

By Ryan Murphy Monsters This isn’t Oziel’s first small-screen dramatization. He was depicted in the 2017 show Law and order, true crime and called his representation “Totally fiction,” in an interview with Bustledismissing the show as a “trash soap opera.”