Dual Lawsuits Accuse and Deny Jose Menendez’s Alleged Sexual Assaults of Menudo Members

Two lawsuits filed this week related to the alleged pattern of sexual assaults of a onetime member of the 1980s boy band give contrasting narratives of the role the band’s then-manager played. One suit alleges that the manager repeatedly raped ex-Menudo member Roy Rosselló while handing him off to others including José Menendez, and the other lawsuit claims that these allegations, made for over a decade but recently highlighted in a 2023 Peacock documentary, are lies. 

On Thursday, in a civil lawsuit filed in New York’s federal court, Rosselló claims that for three years, while in the Latin boy band, he was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Edgardo Díaz, the band’s founder and manager for decades. The suit alleges that from 1983 to 1986, Díaz subjected Rosselló to sexual assault, emotional manipulation and trafficking that spanned the U.S., Brazil, Puerto Rico and other locations worldwide.

In the 17-page complaint, filed under the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law and which seeks a jury trial, Rosselló lays out a detailed account, giving dates that coincide with verifiable details of Menudo’s concerts and TV appearances on The Merv Griffin Show, American Bandstand and Sesame Street during the years he says he was assaulted multiple times per week by Díaz and others — most notably, then-RCA Records chief José Menendez, who signed the band to a $30 million contract and, by many accounts, took an uncharacteristic interest in the group, flying as far as Brazil to be at their performances and inviting the band members to his New Jersey home for barbecues. It was Díaz who facilitated these encounters, the complaint states, which took place at Menendez’s New Jersey home, at a New York hotel following a Menudo performance at Radio City Music Hall and in Brazil while Diaz was in the room. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter this week, Menendez Killings author Robert Rand said that Erik Menendez has recalled that during these barbecues in Princeton, New Jersey, “different times when José would say, ‘I need to go into a bedroom and talk with this member of Menudo, one on one.’”

The formal accusation against the late Menendez patriarch, who in 1989 was gunned down along with his wife, Kitty, in their Beverly Hills home by his sons, comes with an expansion on the accusation Rosselló initially made against José Menendez in the 2023 Peacock docuseries, Menendez and Menudo: Boys Betrayed. Rosselló now indicates he was subjected to multiple sexual assaults by the former RCA chief that took place in numerous countries, not just the single encounter he initially described in the series. 

The complaint and a potential jury trial could further solidify the evidence presented in ongoing legal proceedings in Los Angeles as the Menendez brothers seek their freedom. The brothers’ second joint trial concluded in 1996 after the court did not allow any mention or evidence that their father sexually abused his sons; this torpedoed their defense strategy and led them to be convicted and handed life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Yet this allegation from Rosselló, coupled with a letter, discovered by Rand that was written by Erik Menendez to his cousin months before the murders and describes his father’s alleged ongoing abuse, has helped to sway public opinion on the worthiness of giving the Menendez brothers’ defense a second look, more than 30 years later. 

Rosselló originally accused Diaz of assaulting him on television while appearing on a Brazilian reality competition show in 2014. Diaz is now 77 years old; he has consistently denied all accusations of molestation leveled against him. In 1994, he filed for bankruptcy, three years after he was accused by ex-members of Menudo of sexual abuse, with former member Ralphy Rodriguez as the main accuser. In 2023, the Los Angeles Police Department opened an investigation into Diaz over Rosselló’s allegations in a police report that Diaz sexually assaulted a former member of the group in the 1980s at the Biltmore Hotel.

Menendez and Menudo: Boys Betrayed, the docuseries in which Rosselló first accused José Menendez of sexual assault, is the main subject of the other lawsuit filed this week, but it expands into accusations germane to the Menendez trial; the plaintiff has also made some fresh claims regarding the evidence that has brought the brothers’ case to the fore of national news. 

The complaint filed early this week comes from Darrin McGillis, who owns the rights to several Menudo songs, and is now accusing NBCUniversal of libel and slander, stating that it knowingly aired fabricated lies about Menudo in the Boys Betrayed docuseries, which heavily featured Rosselló and looks at how Menudo was connected to José Menendez. The series provided a platform for Rosselló to come forward with his initial accusation against the elder Menendez, who Rosselló said raped him while he was the president of RCA Records. That accusation had ripple effects that, in part, set off the current legal fight Lyle and Erik Menendez have taken to court to win back their freedom. 

In the suit, which McGillis filed himself without an attorney or firm to back him, he claims that NBC relied on “fabricated statements” and paid Rosselló a “substantial amount of money” in the interest of tying Menudo to “scandalous, false and defamatory labels” such as “sexual,” “molestation,” “gay” and “homosexual.” No contracted member of Menudo has ever brought a civil claim against Diaz, the complaint states (despite the existence of Rosselló’s case). The docuseries has damaged his business, McGillis claims; he’s asking the court that NBC/Universal pay him $500 million in punitive damages.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, McGillis insisted that Rosselló is lying and that he was never molested by Diaz, who he said is not a friend and that the two have had previous business conflicts over the Menudo rights. Rosselló, McGillis insists, has been motivated by money since his career hit the skids and that he was paid by the producers of Boys Betrayed to lie about Menendez in the docuseries. 

McGillis also claims that he was asked to appear in Boys Betrayed by Rand, who was a producer of the show, and was asked by Rand to lie about members of Menudo being molested. In the lawsuit, he accuses Rand of executing a “detailed, complex and well-planned strategy involving many intricate steps” with the ultimate goal of freeing the Menendez brothers. This involved what McGillis claims was a fake interview with former Menudo member Ricky Martin, in which he says Rand claimed Martin told him Menendez placed his hand down the young Martin’s pants while on the way to Disney World. McGillis repeated the story secondhand to the Globe tabloid, which ran it as a cover story and left McGillis feeling duped. 

McGillis told THR by phone that he is motivated to sue to ensure the truth about Rosselló’s alleged lies is exposed and to ensure that the facts of the Menendez brothers’ case are all available to the courts, their family and the public as their attempts at regaining their freedom work through the legal system. On the phone with THR on Friday, McGillis also alleged that Rand previously admitted to him that he fabricated the second major piece of evidence brought forward on the Menendez case — the letter Erik wrote, which Rand discovered in the brothers’ late cousin’s desk while reporting on the story. 

“He told me about this letter — that he went there and the lady let him go into the house,” McGillis explained to THR that Rand once told him. “And so he has free access. And voila! Then I found a letter … Nobody knows whether I found it there or not.’ So he was telling me that he planted this letter.”

Rand told THR on Friday that he never offered any money for McGillis to appear in Boys Betrayed and laughed out loud at the notion that the letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin was fabricated, or that he would ever confide in McGillis about such a thing. 

“The letter is authentic. I discovered at the home of the sister of José Menendez in March of 2018,” Rand said. He added that Rosselló was not the only former Menudo member that the Boys Betrayed producers spoke with about incidents of molestation; he was the only one willing to go on camera to speak about it, though. 

McGillis said that he took this, along with other information, to former Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón’s office and that he felt it was taken seriously but was surprised to see efforts made to get the Menendez brothers a resentencing hearing. 

The legal complaint was filed quickly and without an attorney or firm because McGillis feels an urgency as the Menendez case inches forward. 

“There was an urgency to get this out there for whatever value it has for the court. I don’t know. Maybe everything that I have in there is completely meaningless in the minds of everybody,” he said. “I don’t know — It’s there, it’s the truth. Take it for whatever it’s worth. And if any of this is going to help people make an educated decision regarding anything … it’s there. I’m just telling you what I know. That’s it.”

The Menendez brothers’ next court date for their potential resentencing will take place on May 9.