Prosecutors are seeking an arrest warrant and higher bond for Kyle Rittenhouse, alleging he failed to inform the Wisconsin courts of where he is living as he awaits trial for shooting three people, two of them fatally, during August protests in Kenosha.
The motion filed Wednesday asks a Kenosha County judge to add $200,000 on top of the $2 million the 18-year-old’s lawyers posted to free him in November. Rittenhouse lived in far north suburban Antioch at the time of the shootings but has lived at an undisclosed location since his release.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers objected to the prosecutors’ requests, saying in a written response that the teen and his family have been living in a “safe house” because of death threats. Attorney Mark Richards said the address had been provided to the courts Wednesday along with a motion to seal the information.
In support of their requests, prosecutors wrote that Rittenhouse has “minimal incentive to comply” with his bond conditions because the $2 million wasn’t his. Rittenhouse’s lawyers raised it through a campaign that appealed to the political right, where Rittenhouse is popular. Prosecutors described that fundraising push as a “dubious internet fundraising campaign.”
Prosecutors also referenced the controversy that erupted last month after the teen went to a southern Wisconsin bar in a T-shirt reading “Free as (expletive)” and flashed hand signs appropriated by white supremacist groups. A group of men also serenaded Rittenhouse with a song purportedly appropriated by the Proud Boys, an extremist group. In response, a judge barred Rittenhouse from associating with known white supremacists. The teen’s lawyers have said he has no ties to extremist groups.
In their motion Wednesday, prosecutors used that incident as evidence that Rittenhouse maintains a “carefree attitude” in the face of charges that include murder.
The teen’s attorney, Richards, responded that Kenosha police told his lawyers as he was being released not to put his new address on the bond paperwork. The response also included an email showing that one of Rittenhouse’s lawyers asked a prosecutor in late November whether he could file the teen’s new address under seal. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger declined, citing Wisconsin’s “proud history of open records” and saying he would resist an effort to keep the address secret unless he saw “a specific, tangible and imminent threat.”
Richards included a copy of an email he said he received from an unnamed sender in January who predicted his client would be raped in prison.
The charges against Rittenhouse stem from shootings that came during chaotic demonstrations that followed white police Officer Rusten Sheskey shooting Jacob Blake, who is Black, several times in the back at close range.
Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. A third man, Gaige Grosskreutz, who prosecutors have said was armed with a handgun, survived the teen shooting him in the arm. Rittenhouse’s lawyers have argued he shot the men in self-defense.
