>>15043379
>>15043266
Kyle Rittenhouse's defense lawyer says former attorney Lin Wood wanted to use teen 'for a cause'
https://news.yahoo.com/kyle-rittenhouses-defense-lawyer-says-205749705.html
INSIDER
Kyle Rittenhouse's defense lawyer says former attorney Lin Wood wanted to use teen 'for a cause'
Taiyler Simone Mitchell
Fri, November 19, 2021, 2:57 PM·2 min read
In this article:
L. Lin Wood
American lawyer
Kyle Rittenhouse defense attorney Mark Richards
Kyle Rittenhouse defense attorney Mark RichardsPool / Getty Images
Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted Friday of all charges after fatally shooting 2 people and injuring one more.
His attorney told reporters that his previous attorneys wanted to use the teen for a "cause."
Lawyers Lin Wood and John Pierce left the teen's team before the homicide trial began.
Kyle Rittenhouse's defense attorney Mark Richards told CNN that the teen's former attorneys were using him for "a cause" rather than simply representing a client.
Richards said he was hired by Rittenhouse's prior attorneys, Lin Wood and John Pierce.
"They wanted to use Kyle for a cause, and something that I think was inappropriate," Richards told reporters after a jury acquitted Rittenhouse of all charges in the case. "The only thing that mattered to me was whether he was found not guilty or not. I don't represent causes, I represent clients."
Richards said he told the teen when they first met that he wasn't going to fight over anything that wasn't tied to his legal defense.
"If he was looking for someone to go off on a crusade, I wasn't his lawyer," Richards said he told his client.
Wood and Pierce were Rittenhouse's first attorneys and haven't been shy about their pro-Trump politics.
The two lawyers used Rittenhouse's appeal to the far-right to fundraise the money needed for his bail, according to the Chicago Tribune.
They later asked for the funds back, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In a statement to Insider on Friday evening, Pierce said that they disclaimed any entitlement to the bail money.
"I am so proud of Kyle and thankful that justice was served. The ability to defend ourselves is one of the most basic rights and today that that right was affirmed and upheld," Pierce said in a statement. "I am also incredibly proud of the work that I did in the initial months of the case, building a defense team and helping to raise millions of dollars to gain Kyle his freedom."
More