Prosecutors asked a judge on Wednesday for a new arrest warrant for an Illinois teenager accused of killing two people during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin after he apparently violated his bail conditions.
Kyle Rittenhouse did not inform the court of his change of address 48 hours after the move, Kenosha County prosecutors alleged in a motion filed with Judge Bruce Schroeder. The motion asks Schroeder to issue an arrest warrant and increase Rittenhouse’s bail by $ 200,000.
Prosecutors said in their motion that it is unusual for any murder defendant to be allowed to move freely and the court needs to know where Rittenhouse is at all times. They did not say whether they knew where Rittenhouse currently resides, saying only that he did not provide the court with a new address.
“He didn’t post money, so he has no financial stake in the title,” they wrote. “He is already facing the most serious criminal charges possible and life imprisonment, so in comparison, the possible future criminal penalties are negligible.”
Rittenhouse’s lawyer, Mark Richards, countered in his own motion on Wednesday that death threats had led Rittenhouse to an “undisclosed Safe House”. Richards said he offered prosecutors the new address in November if they kept it a secret, but they refused. He said that Rittenhouse maintained constant contact with him.
Rittenhouse is accused of several charges, including murder, in connection with the August protests in Kenosha. The demonstrations started after a white policeman shot Jacob Blake, which is Black, in the back during a domestic disorder, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Prosecutors allege that Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, responded to a militia call on social media to protect Kenosha companies from protesters. He opened fire with an assault rifle against Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskruetz. Rosenbaum and Huber were killed; Grosskruetz was injured, but he survived.
Rittenhouse, who is white, fled to his home in Antioch, Illinois, but surrendered to the police the next day.
Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department via AP
He said he acted in self-defense after the three men attacked him. Conservatives gathered around him as a symbol of gun rights and against anti-police protesters, although others insist he increased tensions by walking around the protest with a gun.
Conservatives raised $ 2 million to cover his bail and he was released from prison in November.
Last month, Rittenhouse was seen drinking at a bar in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and posing for pictures with two men while making “OK” signs with their hands, a symbol used by white supremacists, according to prosecutors. Five men at the bar also serenaded Rittenhouse with a song that became the anthem of the neo-fascist group Proud Boys, prosecutors claimed.
Rittenhouse is now 18, but still too young to drink. He could drink alcohol in a bar under Wisconsin law because he was with his mother.
The judge ordered him to have no contact with white supremacist advocates after that episode.
Prosecutors wrote in their motion on Wednesday that they learned that Rittenhouse was no longer living at his Antioch address after the court sent him a notice and he was returned as undeliverable on 28 January. apartment and had been living there since mid-December.
Richards, Rittenhouse’s lawyer, argued in his motion that Rittenhouse and his family received threats in several ways, the most recent of which occurred on January 25. When Rittenhouse was released from prison in November, the police told defense lawyers not to provide the safe home address, Richards said.
A lawyer who worked with Richards, Corey Chirafisi, asked assistant district attorney Thomas Binger via email on November 30 if he could keep the address of the safe house sealed, but Binger declined, according to Richards’s motion.
“It is noteworthy that the state has only now decided to file a motion to increase bail in this case, despite having corresponded with attorney Chirafisi about the move to Kyle’s residence more than two months ago,” wrote Richards.
Richards emphasized that Rittenhouse made all his appearances in court and is in constant contact with him. He provided the address of the safe house to the judge as part of a separate motion asking for it to be sealed.