MARRIAGE PLANS STYMIED : BROTHER'S NUPTIALS DEAD-ENDED BY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, JUDGE.

Byline: Jeannette DeSantis Daily News Staff Writer

She looked like the typical bride to be on her wedding day - dressed in white and a little nervous.

But Anna Eriksson's groom-to-be is convicted killer Lyle Menendez, and the couple's hopes of marrying were dashed Monday when the Sheriff's Department declined to host the nuptials at the county jail.

Last week, a judge refused to allow the wedding in a downtown courtroom over cost concerns.

``Everything is out of my hands,'' the 30-year-old bride said Monday.

After telling a national television audience Friday that he was in love, Menendez, 28, hoped to marry his former pen pal - a tall blonde with hip-length hair - before he and his younger brother Erik, are sentenced today to life prison terms for killing their parents.

But the first roadblock came Thursday, when one judge rescinded another judge's ``removal order'' to have the Menendez brothers brought to her courtroom for a wedding Monday.

Then early Monday, Superior Court Judge Nancy Brown told Eriksson - and a courtroom full of reporters - that she was ``offended'' that Judge John Reid had banned the nuptials in her courtroom.

Brown said she spoke with Sheriff Sherman Block, who had agreed to a ceremony at the county jail, and she planned to perform the wedding by the end of the day.

But the Sheriff's Department late Monday said that Menendez had failed to meet written criteria for inmate marriages. He should have requested permission from the sentencing judge, officials said.

Instead of asking Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg, the request was made of Brown.

Weisberg has a policy of not performing marriages.

And Lyle's attorney, Leslie Abramson, said Menendez does not want to be married by Weisberg. ``Why would he want to be married by the judge who has treated these two defendants the worst of any in the history of his career?'' she said.

The whole affair has left everyone fuming.

Eriksson was ready Monday to get married. She sat quietly between a small group of friends, including Lyle's defense attorneys Charles Gessler, Terri Towery, his former attorney Jill Lansing, and his aunt Teresita Baralt.

``I've never had a removal order rescinded in my 28 years on the bench,'' Brown said Monday in an unusual news conference from the bench. Reid ``said it was to protect me from the Commission on Judicial Performance for marrying a defendant at taxpayers' expense.''

Reid had no comment, said court spokeswoman Jerrianne Hayslett.

Calling the Menendez case an ``American tragedy,'' Brown said she had planned to do it on her lunch hour. ``But apparently the powers that be determined that this should not take place in this courtroom, in this courthouse or in my chambers.''

Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of first degree murder in the death of their father, Jose, and their mother, Kitty. The brothers have said they were sexually, psychologically and physically abused by their parents.

Brown said she and defense attorneys had tried to keep the impending marriage quiet, to avoid a ``media circus,'' but things ``were out of control'' once word of the wedding leaked out.

``Marriage is a very private thing, a very personal thing,'' Brown said. ``Particularly under these circumstances.''

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Photo

Photo: Anna Eriksson

Wore white for naught