Sandy MaloneKenosha, WI – Prosecutors filed a motion on Wednesday that alleged 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse had violated the conditions of his release.
Rittenhouse was released on bond in November on a $2 million cash bail that was raised by supporters, WISN reported.
Before that, the teen spent three months in jail, accused of fatally shooting two men who attacked him during the Jacob Blake riots in Kenosha in August.
Rittenhouse is facing five felony charges including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and a misdemeanor charge for possession of a dangerous weapon by a minor, WEAR reported.
He is facing life in prison if he is convicted.
Prosecutors filed a motion with the court on Feb. 3 that said they had been unable to deliver a hearing notice to Rittenhouse because he no longer lived at the address he had listed on his release paperwork, WISN reported.
The notice was returned with a note that the addressee did not reside at that address.
So police detectives were sent to Rittenhouse’s address to deliver the notice, according to the motion filed with the court.
The man who lived at the address told detectives that he had moved in on Dec. 15, 2020 and Rittenhouse had moved out before then, WISN reported.
Prosecutors said that when Rittenhouse signed a document with the court on Jan. 22, he failed to update his address.
The conditions of Rittenhouse’s release required that he notify the District Attorney’s Office within 48 hours if he moved, WISN reported.
Prosecutors asked the judge to issue a warrant for the 18 year old’s arrest.
They also asked the judge to raise Rittenhouse’s bail by $200,000, WISN reported.
This is not the first time prosecutors have accused Rittenhouse of violating the terms of his release.
Prosecutors pointed out in their filing on Feb. 3 that the teen “demonstrated his carefree attitude by going to a bar immediately after his arraignment on Jan. 5, 2021, and drinking 3 beers in the company of known ‘Proud Boys’ while flashing “white supremacist signs” and wearing a ‘Free as F—k’ shirt,” WISN reported.
The alleged “white supremacists signs” were the “okay” hand signal.
A motion was filed with the court about that incident separately.
On Jan. 13, prosecutors filed a motion that said Rittenhouse was spotted drinking alcohol in Pudgy’s Pub in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin after his Jan. 5 arraignment, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The court filing also claimed that while he was in the tavern, Rittenhouse flashed the okay sign – which prosecutors claim has become a symbol of the far-right Proud Boys – and was “loudly serenaded” by five men with the song “Proud of Your Boy” that has become the anthem of that group, the Associated Press reported.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added the “okay” hand gesture and 35 other images and slogans to its list of hate symbols in October of 2019.
The myth that the okay sign actually means “white power” was started by internet trolls on 4chan, an anonymous message board, in February of 2017, the ADL previously said.
“We must flood twitter and other social media websites with spam, claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy,” the anonymous poster wrote, according to the civil rights organization. “Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy. We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that s–t.”
Users encouraged people to perpetuate the hoax using hashtags such as #PowerHandPrivilege and #NotOkay, created fake social media and email accounts, and bombarded journalists and civil rights organizations with the misinformation.
The symbol became widely used as a political statement to mock leftists for believing the myth.
But in 2019, the hand gesture “was being used in some circles as a sincere expression of white supremacy,” the ADL said in a press release.
Prosecutors searched the security video from the bar where Rittenhouse was reportedly spotted drinking and posing with Proud Boys for photos and presented numerous screenshots as evidence of the defendant’s activities.
Mount Pleasant police investigated and said that Rittenhouse had not violated any of the terms of his release, the New York Daily News reported.
Although the national minimum drinking age is 21, Wisconsin law permits individuals 18 years of age and older to drink in bars when they are accompanied by their parents.
The Illinois teen is currently living in Racine to assist his attorneys in preparing his defense.
There was speculation that the address change Rittenhouse failed to make dated back to that move.
The motion filed by prosecutors on Jan. 13 asked the judge to prohibit Rittenhouse from “publicly displaying symbols and gestures that are associated with violent white supremacist groups and from associating with known members of those groups, particularly the Proud Boys,” the Chicago Tribune reported.
They also asked that the 18 year old be banned from bars and drinking alcohol while he is out on bail.
“The consumption of alcohol increases the likelihood of violent criminal acts,” the motion read, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Rittenhouse’s criminal attorney, Mark Richards, responded to the petition early on Thursday morning and said that he did not object to the prosecutors’ requested conditions.
Richards also said that Rittenhouse “is not currently and has not ever been a member of any of the organizations the state lists in its motion,” the Chicago Tribune reported.
The attorney said that there was no evidence that linked his client to “the listed organizations” and said the teen had “no membership, affiliation, or affinity for any of the identified groups.”
He accused prosecutors of “a not-so-thinly veiled attempt to interject the issue of race into a case that is about a person’s right to self-defense,” the Chicago Tribune reported.
Rittenhouse stands accused of having killed two white men during the Kenosha riots.
His attorneys have said the teen was in Kenosha to help clean graffiti off school buildings that had been vandalized in the Blake riots when a friend asked him to help provide security for a car dealership.
Rittenhouse, then 17 year old, brought a medic kit and an AR-15 rifle that a friend had purchase for him with his pandemic stimulus check and told reporters on the scene he was there to help anybody who was hurt.
At one point, he left the dealership to provide medical aid to a protester and then found himself blocked from returning to where his friends were.
His attorneys have said Rittenhouse was pursued through the streets of Kenosha and shot three people – killing two – in self-defense.
Holly Matkin
