A crowdfunding page for 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of shooting and killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has raised more than $500,000.
Rittenhouse was arrested in Lake County, Illinois. His lawyers are fighting his extradition to Wisconsin.
“Now, Kyle is being unfairly charged with murder ... by a DA who seems determined to capitalize on the political angle of the situation,” the fundraising page said. “The situation was clearly self-defense, and Kyle and his family will undoubtedly need money to pay for the legal fees.”
Rittenhouse was in Kenosha, the site of several nights of arsons and unrest following the police-involved shooting of Jacob Blake.
Lawyers representing Rittenhouse also said on Wednesday they will be preparing a defamation lawsuit against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign. Biden’s campaign tried to link Rittenhouse to white supremacists in Kenosha.
Biden “defamed Kyle Rittenhouse by suggesting on this video that he is a White Supremacist. The #Left just will not stop. I am working on the retraction demand now for Mr. Biden and his campaign,” attorney Todd McMurtry wrote on social media.
Marina Medvin, who is also representing Rittenhouse, said in a statement that “there is absolutely no evidence, not even a pinch, of this defamatory accusation that my client Kyle Rittenhouse is a ‘white supremacist.'”
