Rittenhouse friend takes citation for providing AR-15-style rifle used in Kenosha killings
KENOSHA -- In the end, it was like Dominick Black gave 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse some beer, not an AR-15-style rifle later used to kill two people at protests in Kenosha.
On Monday, Black, 20, pleaded no contest Monday to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a non-criminal ordinance violation. He also agreed to pay $2,032.50 in fines and costs.
The pleas were made through Black's attorney. Two felony counts of providing a firearm to a minor, resulting in death, were dismissed.
The brief hearing provided an end note to part one of the Rittenhouse story that drew intense national media attention in 2020. He was depicted, on one hand, as an out-of-state conservative vigilante, and by supporters as a community-minded volunteer who defended himself while exercising Second Amendment rights.
A jury acquitted Rittenhouse, 18, of all counts during a two-week trial in November. He has since given numerous interviews on conservative news outlets and been a guest speaker at conservative political events.
He and Black became friends after Black began dating Rittenhouse's older sister. Rittenhouse, two sisters and their mother lived in Antioch, Illinois, just over the border.
In May 2020, on a trip up north, Black bought Rittenhouse a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle at a Ladysmith hardware store. Rittenhouse, then 17, was too young to legally purchase the weapon at the time.
The gun was kept at Black's stepfather's house in Kenosha until the friends decided to go downtown on the night of Aug. 25, 2020 to help protect a car dealership. The business had sustained arson and vandalism during two prior nights of the protesting and rioting following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
A couple months after Rittenhouse was charged, prosecutors hit Black with the two felonies, one for each of the people Rittenhouse fatally shot -- Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Prosecutors accused Black of providing the gun on Aug. 25, when both friends went armed downtown.
Black, testifying for the state at Rittenhouse's trial, said the gun had been locked in his stepfather's safe until the violence broke out in Kenosha on Aug. 23. Then, Black said, his stepfather moved them to the basement, where Rittenhouse picked it up and Black didn't try to stop him from bringing it downtown.
From day one, Rittenhouse's lawyers had argued that one of the counts against him -- possessing a firearm as a minor -- should be dismissed based on their reading of what they called an exception in the state law. Black's lawyer later made the same argument.
Right before the Rittenhouse case went to the jury, Judge Bruce Schroeder agreed with the defense the statute was too confusing, and threw out the possession charge.
At Monday's brief plea hearing, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said while his office still disagrees with that interpretation, he knows that's Schroeder's view and might just dismiss Black's case entirely.
That and the fact that Rittenhouse was also acquitted of the other charges, Binger said, made it appropriate to resolve the case, instead of pressing the felonies prosecution. Binger did not respond to questions from a reporter after the hearing.
Black's attorney, Anthony Cotton, of Waukesha, said he has no indication that federal authorities might charge his client with a straw-purchase. He said Black now works full-time for a fencing contractor and thought Rittenhouse was rightly acquitted.
Cotton said until Monday's hearing, Black was under an order to have no contact with Rittenhouse and didn't think the two had spoken since right after the Aug. 25, 2020 shootings.
Contact Bruce Vielmetti at (414) 224-2187 or bvielmetti@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ProofHearsay.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Rittenhouse friend accepts citation over providing AR-15-style rifle
