Erik Menendez Admits He Tried to Buy $8-Million House

After killing his parents, Erik Menendez discussed buying an $8-million home and forming a group similar to the Billionaire Boys Club, the murder defendant admitted Tuesday before ending his testimony.

The younger of two brothers accused of killing their wealthy parents for their inheritance, Erik Menendez acknowledged that he also made an offer of $1.1 million for a home a month before he and his brother, Lyle, were arrested.

Defense attorney Leslie Abramson objected to the testimony on grounds that the offer was never accepted, was “remote in time” from the deaths of Jose and Kitty Menendez and did not impeach Erik’s credibility.

“He did not portray himself as someone with absolutely no interest in money,” she said outside the jury’s presence. “ . . . He has not tried to portray himself as someone who was going to cast off all the money and live with a begging bowl on the streets of Santa Monica.”

But Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled that the evidence contradicts Erik’s aunt, who testified that he was surprised at his vast inheritance and talked of using it to set up a charity for the homeless.

“Do you recall indicating you wanted to buy a house for $8 million in Beverly Hills?” asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Lester Kuriyama.

“Yes,” Erik Menendez said. “I said one great idea would be to buy this house and develop it.”

Stepping down after 10 days on the stand, Erik Menendez also reluctantly acknowledged that he spoke to his friend Craig Cignarelli about forming a group like the Billionaire Boys Club, which was made up of several young Southern California men who joined together to make millions but wound up involved in the murder of a member’s father.

The conversation in November, 1989, was secretly taped by Cignarelli at the request of police.

Erik, 22, and Lyle, 25, have admitted shooting their parents to death on Aug. 20, 1989, in their Beverly Hills mansion. They claim self-defense after years of abuse.

Kuriyama asked Erik Menendez what he meant when he discussed “the BBC” with Cignarelli. He had said in earlier testimony that the initials referred to the British Broadcasting Corp.

“Isn’t it true you knew that the BBC refers to the Billionaire Boys Club?” Kuriyama asked.

“The initials BBC are for several things, one of them was Billionaire Boys Club,” Erik responded.

Kuriyama then confronted Erik Menendez with his own recorded statements that he wanted to form a group of four people he could trust that could earn $1 million to $2 million a year.

“I was just spinning my wheels,” the defendant told jurors.

Kuriyama read from a transcript in which Cignarelli asked, “Kind of like BBC?” and Erik Menendez responded: “Kind of like BBC, but you know, it’s everywhere.”

Asked by Kuriyama what BBC referred to there, Erik Menendez mumbled: “Billionaire Boys Club.”

Jurors also heard that Erik Menendez had offered $1.1 million for a house in the Silver Strand area of Marina del Rey in February, 1990. He and his brother were arrested in March.

He was followed to the witness stand by Donovan Goodreau, 26, a college chum of Lyle Menendez who was recalled by the defense to clarify earlier testimony.

Lyle Menendez has testified that he confided in Goodreau that Jose Menendez had been molesting both brothers. Goodreau remembered telling his friend that he had been a victim of molestation but could not remember Lyle Menendez telling him the same thing.

Goodreau acknowledged Tuesday that he told an author that Lyle Menendez confided in him about the molestations. But he said he cannot remember that now.

Lyle Menendez’s attorney, Jill Lansing, played jurors a tape recording of Goodreau telling author Bob Rand that the older Menendez brother described molestations and that “I could have fallen out of the back of my seat when he was telling me about it. Him and his brother. . . .”

“I know I said that,” Goodreau said upon further questioning. “But I can’t recall all the events surrounding that.”

“You mean you made it up?” asked Lansing.

“Maybe,” said Goodreau, suggesting that perhaps the idea was planted in his head by the author or someone else.

Goodreau was the friend whose driver’s license was used as identification by the Menendez brothers to buy the guns they used to kill their parents.