NBC's First Season of Law & Order: True Crime Casts Erik Menendez and Counsel

Law & Order: True Crime season 1 cast Gus Halper (Power, Public Morals) as Erik Menendez, who along with his brother Erik Menendez, went to jail for life, without the possibility of parole for murdering their parents in a courtroom sensation that shocked the nation. Haler joins Edie Falco (The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie), who was cast defense attorney Leslie Abramson. 

Dick Wolf and NBC's upcoming scripted anthology drama Law & Order: True Crime season 1 will be written by Rene Balcer (Law & Order), who will executive produce the series with Wolf, Peter Jankowski and Arthur W. Forney.

Falco, who also appeared on shows Horace and Pete, 30 Rock, Oz and Homicide: Life on the Street, was cast in February.

“I’ve known Edie for more than two decades,” Wolf said in a statement at the time. “Our working relationship started when she was among an elite group of actors who made multiple appearances as defense attorneys on Law & Order in the early ’90s. Edie was at the top of that list. She did a fabulous job on Law & Order and, as Leslie Abramson, will knock the role out of the park.”

Law & Order: True Crimewill document famous real-life criminal cases, like FX is doing on American Crime Story. While FX chronicled the O.J. Simpson trial in its premiere season, the eight-episode Law & Orderseries’ first season will focus on the Menendez brothers murder case.

Lyle and Erik Menendez were the sons of entertainment executive Jose Menendez and former schoolteacher Mary Louis "Kitty" Menendez. On August 20, 1989, 21-year-old Lyle and 18-year-old Erik shot and killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home at 722 North Elm Drive and then went dinner and the movies with friends as an alibi. When they got home, they called 9-1-1. The brothers were considered suspects but the police had no evidence to connect them to the killings. Erik confessed to his psychologist.

The brothers were tried separately. The first two trials resulted in hung juries. They were convicted of murder at the third trial and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1996. The trial aired on CourtTV in 1993, two years before the O.J. Simpson trial.

"We've been talking with Dick about how to create an event series coming out of the Law & Orderripped-from-the-headlines brand. This case captured the public's attention like nothing before it as it examined taboo issues such as patricide and matricide in gruesome detail, all against a backdrop of privilege and wealth," Jennifer Salke, President, NBC Entertainment, said in a statement.

"We will recreate the cultural and societal surroundings of both the murders and trials when people were not only obsessed with the case but examining how and why these brothers committed these heinous crimes." 

"Bob, Jen and I have been focused the natural evolution of the Law & Order brand for the last several years and are excited to extend the franchise with a scripted limited anthology series that focuses on a high-profile trial," Dick Wolf said in a statement. "There is no shortage of compelling real-life criminal cases, and the Menendez trial was more scintillating than most crime fiction."

SOURCE: THE WRAP