Prosecutors Push for Re-Arrest of Kyle Rittenhouse
Kenosha County prosecutors want Kyle Rittenhouse arrested amid a flare-up over the location where Rittenhouse is now living as he awaits trial on murder charges.
Prosecutors also want Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail raised by $200,000, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to seven charges related to the deaths of two men during the riots that gripped Kenosha last summer.
The catalyst for the demand was that mail from the court sent to the Antioch, Illinois, address where Rittenhouse lived before having the national limelight put upon him was returned as undeliverable, with no forwarding address, prosecutors said.
The prosecution claims Rittenhouse violated the terms of his bail by not putting his address on the court’s forms.
Kenosha detectives went to the Antioch address and found someone else was living in the apartment where Rittenhouse and his mother had been living, prosecutors said, according to NPR.
Prosecutors also said they need to know Rittenhouse’s whereabouts at all times. Their filing did not address whether they knew his whereabouts, only that the form providing his address was not current.
They sought to paint Rittenhouse as a flight risk.
“He posted no money so he has no financial stake in the bond,” they wrote. “He is already facing the most serious possible criminal charges and life in prison, so in comparison, potential future criminal penalties are insignificant.”
Rittenhouse has shown up for his virtual court appearances, including the one for which the notice was returned, when he appeared while in the office of his Racine, Wisconsin-based attorney, Mark Richards.
Attorney John Pierce, who had been representing Rittenhouse but is no longer doing so, signed a Wednesday affidavit saying that “arrangements were made for the Rittenhouse family to reside at a ‘Safe House’ in an unidentified location,” after his bail was posted, according to CNN.
Pierce said that he went in person to the Kenosha County Public Safety Building to post cash bond for Rittenhouse on Nov. 20, 2020, and had gone over some issues related to his release with the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office “several days prior to actually posting his bond.”
Pierce said a Kenosha police captain told him he “‘absolutely should not’ provide the address of the Rittenhouse Safe House on the form, but to instead provide his home address in Antioch, Illinois.”
Rittenhouse’s current attorneys filed an e-mail exchange in which they asked prosecutors to keep Rittenhouse’s address from being made public.
“Mr. Rittenhouse will need to update the court on a change of address, because of security concerns, we would like to keep that information away from the general public. I wanted to know if you would agree to allow the filing of the change of address with the court under seal?” Rittenhouse’s defense wrote.
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger rejected that proposal.
“Wisconsin has a proud history of open records and government transparency, and I am reluctant to make an exception to the normal practices,” he wrote. “Unless you can provide me with a specific, tangible and imminent threat (or threats) that would justify secrecy in this case, I am not willing to agree to redact your client’s address from the public record.”
Richards said this week that prosecutors knew full well that Rittenhouse was not living in Antioch.
Richards said he would provide the teenager’s address to the judge, but only under seal.
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