Defense Attorney Mark Richards said the only thing that mattered was whether Rittenhouse was found not guilty or not.<\/b>
\nSoon after a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges against him, defense attorney Mark Richards took a swipe at his predecessors, telling reporters that their tactics \u2013 leaning into Rittenhouse\u2019s portrayal as a rallying point for the right to carry weapons and defend oneself \u2013 were not his. \u201cI was hired by the two first lawyers. I\u2019m not going to use their names,\u201d Richards said Friday. \u201cThey wanted to use Kyle for a cause and something that I think was inappropriate \u2013 and I don\u2019t represent causes. I represent clients.\u201d Richards, beaming as he talked to reporters outside his Racine law office after the acquittal, said that to him, the only thing that mattered was \u201cwhether he was found not guilty or not.\u201d It seemed an apt comment from Richards. Along with co-counsel Corey Chirafisi, he spent the months leading up to the case in virtual silence \u2013 \u201cI don\u2019t do interviews,\u201d he said brusquely to one emailed request in December \u2013 and sought at trial to minimize the polarizing questions about Second Amendment rights. Hours after the verdict, Fox News touted an exclusive interview and upcoming documentary on Rittenhouse, with footage that made it clear a crew had been embedded with him during the trial. Richards told The Associated Press on Saturday that he opposed the crew as inappropriate, but that it was arranged by those raising money for Rittenhouse. \u201cIt was not approved by me, but I\u2019m not always in control,\u201d he said, adding that he had to toss the crew out of the room on several occasions: \u201cI think it detracted from what we were trying to do, and that was obviously to get Kyle found not guilty.\u201d Regardless of what was happening behind the scenes, the strategy from Richards and Chirafisi in court was clear: get the jury to regard Rittenhouse as a scared teenager who shot to save his life. They repeatedly focused on the two minutes,55 seconds in which the shootings unfolded \u2013 the critical moments in which Rittenhouse, then 17, said he felt a threat and pulled the trigger. \u201cThese guys have a client who is a human being &mldr; that\u2019s what they\u2019re rightly focused on,\u201d said Dean Strang, a defense attorney and distinguished professor in residence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Strang, who spoke to the AP before Friday\u2019s verdict and who wasn\u2019t connected to the case, said Richards and Chirafisi see Rittenhouse \u201cas an 18-year-old kid who landed in a whole lot of trouble, more than he could handle.\u201d In the days after the shootings, Rittenhouse \u2013 who brought an AR-style rifle to a protest, saying he was protecting a stranger\u2019s property \u2013 was initially represented by attorneys John Pierce and Lin Wood, who painted Rittenhouse as a defender of liberty and a patriot who was exercising his right to bear arms. Pierce tweeted a video of Rittenhouse speaking by phone from a jail in Illinois, where he\u2019s from, thanking supporters. A video released by a group tied to his legal team said Rittenhouse was being \u201csacrificed by politicians\u201d whose \u201cend game\u201d was to stop the \u201cconstitutional right of all citizens to defend our communities.\u201d Rivers of money flowed in to a legal defense fund \u2013 more than enough for Rittenhouse to post his $2 million bail \u2013 but Wood left the case and became active in pressing the claim that Donald Trump had won the presidential election. Pierce left the criminal case in December after prosecutors said he shouldn\u2019t be allowed to raise money for Rittenhouse, but he stayed on the civil side of things until Rittenhouse said he fired him in February. On Friday, Richards recounted his first meeting with Rittenhouse: \u201cI told him when I first met him, if he\u2019s looking for somebody to go off on a crusade, I wasn\u2019t his lawyer.\u201d Richards \u2013 gravel-voiced, gruff and often sprawled back in his chair during the proceedings \u2013 had seemed to be the lead attorney in the months leading up to the trial. After the verdicts, he called Chirafisi his co-counsel \u2013 \u201cnot second chair\u201d \u2013 and referred to him as his \u201cbest friend.\u201d They came to court prepared. Richards used several videos during his opening statement \u2013 over the objection of prosecutors who did not seize on that opportunity. They argued vehemently for a mistrial when they felt prosecutors were acting in bad faith, and appeared to outmaneuver prosecutors in getting a gun charge dismissed. And they made a careful calculation with perhaps their biggest decision: whether Rittenhouse should take the stand, risking a potentially damaging cross-examination. Richards said they tested their case against a pair of mock juries and found it was \u201csubstantially better\u201d with Rittenhouse testifying. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a close call,\u201d he said. Richards is a courtroom veteran and was a prosecutor in Racine and Kenosha counties in the late 1980s before he opened his own firm in 1990 that specializes in criminal defense. Chirafisi is also a former prosecutor and has been practicing law for more than 20 years. His law firm is in Madison. The attorneys repeatedly pushed back against prosecutors\u2019 notion that Rittenhouse was an outsider drawn to Kenosha by the chaos, noting that although he lived in nearby Antioch, Illinois, his father lived in Kenosha and Rittenhouse worked in Kenosha County as a lifeguard. Richards shared his own distress at watching the violence in Kenosha from his home in Racine after the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer. While prosecutors tried to show that Rittenhouse acted as a vigilante who overreacted, he and his lawyers argued that he was defending himself. \u201cYou as jurors will end up looking at it from the standpoint of a 17-year-old under the circumstances as they existed,\u201d Richards told the jury. When Rittenhouse was on the stand, they were quick to object to the prosecutor\u2019s cross-examination, calling it badgering. In one fiery moment of the trial, after the defense objected to prosecutor Thomas Binger\u2019s line of questioning, Chirafisi raised the prospect that Binger was trying to provoke a mistrial because the state was faring poorly. \u201cI don\u2019t know that it\u2019s my role to sit here and say who\u2019s winning,\u201d Chirafisi told the judge. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessarily what I\u2019m supposed to do. But I think the court has to make some findings as it relates to the bad faith on the part of the prosecution.\u201d Richards and Chirafisi split the duties at trial, with Richards doing the opening statement and closing argument and Chirafisi handling much of the witness testimony. Richards said the two argued over who would question Gaige Grosskreutz, the man who had a gun in his hand when Rittenhouse shot and wounded him. Richards said Chirafisi won \u2013 and did a better job than he would have. Chirafisi got Grosskreutz to admit that he had pointed his gun at Rittenhouse. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him &mldr; that he fired, right?\u201d Chirafisi asked. \u201cCorrect,\u201d Grosskreutz replied. Under follow-up questioning from the prosecutor, Grosskreutz said he never meant to point his weapon at Rittenhouse. Strang, who helped represent Steven Avery in the case documented by the Netflix \u201cMaking a Murderer\u201d series, described Chirafisi as quick-witted and always engaged in the courtroom. Strang said Richards is slow to anger, but \u201cwon\u2019t let go\u201d if he thinks something is unfair. That was evident during Richards\u2019 closing argument when, in his booming voice, he looked at the prosecutors\u2019 table and repeatedly accused Binger of lying. Jurors appeared riveted. Richards repeated his distaste for the way prosecutors presented their case on Friday. He also blamed social media for spreading what he called \u201cnot the true story\u201d of the events in Kenosha right after they happened \u2013 \u201csomething we had to work to overcome in court.\u201d \u201cI knew this case was big,\u201d Richards told reporters. \u201cI never knew it was going to be this big.\u201d<\/p>\n