‘Omitted Truth,’ Says Witness : Courts: Jose Menendez’s sister testifies that in initial police interview she did not mention abuse of the brothers.

Lyle and Erik Menendez’s aunt testified Tuesday that she deliberately misled detectives investigating the killings of the brothers’ parents by allowing them to believe the Menendez family was close and loving.

In riveting cross-examination at the brothers’ murder trial, aunt Marta Menendez Cano asserted that she omitted any mention of mistreatment of the brothers to protect the family’s image.

Cano is one of several relatives called by the defense to testify about alleged abuse in the Menendez home. But prosecutors sought to undermine her credibility through rapid-fire questions about her statements to police nearly four years ago that there were no problems in the family.

The aunt said she intentionally “omitted certain images of truth” then, but asserted that she had good reason not to tell police the reality. “The boys were not at stake at the time,” she said.

Cano insisted that she was telling the truth at the trial in Van Nuys Superior Court. The parents of Lyle Menendez, 25, and Erik Menendez, 22, were “cruel and wrong,” often verbally and physically abusing the brothers, Cano said.

The brothers are charged with first-degree murder in the Aug. 20, 1989, shotgun slayings of Jose Menendez, 45, a wealthy entertainment executive, and Kitty Menendez, 47, in the den of the family’s Beverly Hills mansion. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Prosecutors contend that the brothers killed out of hatred and greed. The defense says the killings are an act of self-defense after a childhood of physical, mental and sexual abuse.

The proceedings Tuesday were punctuated by the latest--and most intense--clash between Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg and defense lawyer Leslie Abramson. For weeks, he has scolded her and reminded her to be lawyer-like.

On Tuesday, for the first time, the judge mentioned the possibility of holding the attorney in contempt.

“Ms. Abramson,” Weisberg said, “you tend to shake your head negatively when the court rules against you. You had better stop doing that or the court is going to find you in contempt.”

“Well, the court may be finding me in contempt pretty soon, anyway, because I’m finding the court’s rulings astonishingly biased,” Abramson shot back, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back in her chair.

Weisberg asked if she was inviting him to sanction her. “No, no,” she said. “I’m just saying there’s only so much unfairness one can bear.”

“You had better behave professionally,” the judge said. “I’m warning you at this time. Is that clear?”

“I heard you, yes indeed, sir,” she said.

The exchange occurred after the judge barred Cano, 51, a financial planner from West Palm Beach, Fla., from telling jurors that Lyle and Erik Menendez seemed shocked when she told them four days after the killings that their parents’ estate was worth $14 million gross, $8 million net.

In a hearing Monday without jurors present, Cano quoted Erik Menendez as saying: “I can’t believe my father had so much money.” She also said both brothers believed they had been written out of the will.

The testimony was sought by the defense to rebut the prosecution’s charge that the brothers killed for their father’s millions. But Weisberg ruled Tuesday that whatever the brothers told Cano was hearsay evidence, and therefore inadmissible.

With jurors present, Cano did say that Erik Menendez cared so little for money that, “If he did inherit, he would give this money to homeless kids who had run away from home.”

For a second day, Cano also described the mistreatment the parents inflicted on their sons. She said Jose Menendez was domineering and Kitty Menendez unpredictably hostile.

Under cross-examination, Cano said family pressures caused her not to report the parents’ “out of hand” conduct to authorities.

In a meeting in October, 1989, Beverly Hills Police Detective Leslie H. Zoeller asked Cano if there were problems within the family. She told him no.

Defending her statement in court, Cano noted that Zoeller did not ask her directly about abuse. She said she did not believe the family dynamics “had anything to do with the killings” and that “Jose never wanted to portray that to the outside.”

It was about the time of her interview that police began to focus on the brothers as suspects.

“The fact of all these goings-on did not cause you to be suspicious?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Bozanich asked, meaning suspicious of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

“No, they were very good kids,” Cano said.