The mother of Kyle Rittenhouse claims high-profile attorney Lin Wood used her son for his own personal and political motives.
Then: Wood helped start up Rittenhouse’s legal defense fund after the then-17-year-old was accused of killing two men and injuring a third during riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin last August.
- In the aftermath of the incidents, Rittenhouse became a cause celebre, especially for conservatives and gun rights advocates who believed the pro-police teen had acted in self-defense and that his prosecution was politically motivated.
- Wood, a staunch Donald Trump supporter who famously represented Covington Catholic High School graduate Nicholas Sandmann in defamation lawsuits against various media outlets, used the hashtag #FightBack to drum up support and fundraising for Rittenhouse.
- #FightBack would eventually evolve into a Texas-based non-profit organization aimed at combatting broader issues of interest to Wood, such as electoral fraud in the 2020 election and Big Tech overreach.
Now: In interviews last month for Law&Crime’s podcast “Objections,” Wendy Rittenhouse accused Wood, and his associate John Pierce, of using her son’s case for personal gain.
- “They used Kyle to gain money, gain Twitter followers,” she told Law&Crime. “I felt now they didn’t care about Kyle.”
- According to Rittenhouse, Wood left her son in jail for 87 days – despite having raised the money to bail him out – because the Georgia-based attorney expected “Armageddon” to take place on the day of the Nov. 3 presidential election.
- “He told me that my son would be safe in jail because he thought that on the night of the election—was Nov. 3 or the fourth, I can’t remember what day the election was on—that there was going to be Armageddon,” Rittenhouse said.
- Rittenhouse also told Law&Crime that Wood refused her request for an audit of the funds raised for Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal defense.
- “He used my son’s image to make profit off of that. And I asked for an accounting of it. And I never got it. I was ignored,” she said. “They used a 17-year-old kid’s image for their own political sh•t.”
Wood told Law&Crime he’d never received a request for an audit and said he agreed with a decision to keep Rittenhouse in jail over death threats the teen received.
