Defense attorney Mark Richards was the lead lawyer representing Kyle Rittenhouse last year.
How did he get involved in that national case?
WTMJ’s Libby Collins sat down with Richards on this week’s episode of WTMJ Conversations.
Listen in the player above.
A portion of the conversation was transcribed below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters, Inc.
LIBBY COLLINS: I want to talk to you about one of your most famous clients, maybe the most famous client, and that’s where you became on the radar of a lot of people, and that is Kyle Rittenhouse. How did you get involved in that case to begin with?
MARK RICHARDS: Well, I was approached by an attorney from the State of Virginia, her name was Marina — still is — Medvin, and she was working doing writing for John Pierce and Lynn Wood when the Rittenhouse case started. And obviously, Pierce and Lynn Wood were not licensed in the State of Wisconsin and they needed somebody locally to represent their interests. They had hired, originally, an attorney out of Madison, a guy by the name of Chris Van Wagner, who I know, I’ve known him for quite some time over the years. And that relationship lasted about a weekend, and he separated, and they called other attorneys. I’d heard they were calling around, and they called me. And I spoke to Marina and she asked if I’d be interested. And this was the second week in September, it had happened on August 25th.
And, initially, I thought to myself there’s no way on God’s green earth I’d get involved in the case because of what had been portrayed in the media, you know, racist, skinhead, white supremacist comes to Kenosha to shoot people. And the more I read, the more I saw in that interim, it wasn’t that way. It wasn’t the way it was being portrayed in some of the popular press. And I saw a lot of videos online — not near as many as I saw. And they asked if I would be interested in coming onboard to be local counsel. And I told them that I wouldn’t really be interested in just a local counsel role, you can hire anybody to do that. If you’re looking for somebody to take a more active role and be involved in the litigation, then I would be interested.
I also knew the politics that were involved in the case, and I’m not a republican, and I said — and these are hardcore republicans, and I said to them, I go, “What you need to know is, on election night, we won’t be going to the same parties.” And that’s exactly how I said it. And Marina Medvin said, “That doesn’t bother me, I’ll have to talk to John and Lynn.” And I said that’s fine.
And I got a call from John Pierce, who at that time, was the guy on television making all of the appearances. And he came and flew in to meet with me and we talked. And he had an interesting theory of defense, I don’t think it was a valid or a viable theory, and I thought self-defense was the way to go, and we talked through different issues. And he asked me if I had any questions, and I said to him, I go, “Yeah, how many criminal jury trials have you ever done?” And he said, “Zero.” And I — my response was, “This isn’t the one to learn on.” And they hired me anyhow. And this was when they were still fighting the extradition in Illinois. And I began working with Kyle, going through videos, learning the case. I didn’t agree with fighting the extradition, I thought it was a waste of resources. I thought it looked — made Kyle look bad, like he’s afraid of coming to Wisconsin, but I was overruled.
And I became involved, and eventually a decision had to be made by John Pierce whether or not he would stay on the case or whether he would be the media guy. And I told him he couldn’t do both, because it’s on my law license, and he chose to be the media guy.
And then there was a separation, and I became lead counsel. I lobbied for my friend Corey Chirafisi to be in the case as co-counsel. I’ve worked with Corey on numerous cases, and the four cases — before Rittenhouse, the three cases we had tried, all ended in acquittals. And I wanted him because I trust him, I work with him well. I told him to meet with the family, the family liked him, and we brought Corey on board. And the rest kind of is history.
LIBBY COLLINS: What was your initial impression of Kyle Rittenhouse?
MARK RICHARDS: He was an incredibly polite, scared kid. You know, he was a police explorer, fire department explorer. He never contemplated being incarcerated, locked up facing a murder charge. So, to go and meet him initially in September in juvenile detention in Illinois — I don’t want to use the word “freaked out,” because that wouldn’t be it, but he wanted help. I agreed to take the case, obviously with the approval of the client, so I had to meet him. And we had a nice long talk.
And, you know, right from the beginning I told him what he was up against. There was a lot of talk in the defense group that they believed that this was all political, which to a certain extent it was, but they believed if Trump won the election, this case would go away. And I’ve dealt with the Kenosha District Attorney’s Office in the past, and I knew that was going to have absolutely no impact on this case, that we needed to get ready for litigation and ultimately a jury trial, unless Kyle wanted to take some sort of middle ground, which would have been going to prison for a long time.
And I firmly believed if Kyle went to prison, because of the notoriety and the labeling he received, he wouldn’t have come out of prison alive. So, there were some added pressures and added concerns that I took to heart, and I know most people on the defense team did also.