Kim Kardashian and Monsters Star Cooper Koch Visit Erik and Lyle Menendez in San Diego Prison

Kardashian has been advocating for prison reform since 2018 and has been studying to become a lawyer. The reality star helped Alice Johnson get released from a life sentence after reading about her story on X (formerly known as Twitter) in October 2017. In May 2019, she helped negotiate the release of another low-level drug offender from prison and met with then-imprisoned Slam star Momolu Stewart, who was convicted of murder and served 22 years in prison.

The SKMIS founder has visited the White House multiple times to discuss prison reform, recently participating in a roundtable discussion with Vice President Kamala Harris on the subject in April. Kardashian met up with Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who was released from prison in December 2023 after serving more than eight years, in a July episode of The Kardashians to talk about changes that could be made to the legal system and how Blanchard, 33, could be influential in that space.

Erik, now 53, and Lyle, 56, shot their parents José and Kitty Menendez inside their family home in Beverly Hills on Aug. 20, 1989. They were tried three times related to the murders, and both brothers alleged that José was physically, emotionally and sexually abusive and that Kitty was addicted to drugs and alcohol, physically abusive and enabled her husband’s abuse.

In Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, Koch plays Erik alongside Nicholas Alexander Chavez’s Lyle, and Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny play their parents José and Kitty.

Following the series’ premiere on Netflix on Sept. 19, Erik released a statement on Lyle’s Facebook page slamming the portrayal of him and his brother as he reflected on the trauma and abuse they experienced in their childhood.

“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show,” Erik began the statement. “I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.”

He continued, “It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women.

Erik claimed that the portrayals of him and his brother were “vile and appalling” and accused Murphy, 58, of “disheartening slander.”

“Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth,” Erik wrote. “How demoralizing is it to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma.”

Erik concluded his statement by thanking those who “have reached out and supported” him.

Representatives for Murphy and Netflix did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.