What’s True — and False — About the Victims’ Criminal Histories
The viral claims alleging unlawful behavior by Huber, Rosenbaum, and Grosskreutz before the Kenosha shooting were a mixture of truth and falsehoods.
For example, yes, Rosenbaum was found guilty of engaging in “sexual conduct with a minor” in Arizona’s Pima County in March 2002, almost two decades before his death, according to an online database of prison inmates in Arizona, via the state’s department of corrections. Per that online portal, he was sentenced to prison or parole for roughly 15 years. The state’s law defines the felony offense as “intentionally or knowingly engaging in sexual intercourse or oral sexual contact with any person who is under eighteen (18) years of age,” though we could not confirm the details of Rosenbaum’s case. We requested copies of probable-cause statements from the Pima County Superior Court’s Office, and we will update this report when or if we hear back.
Considering that evidence, the claim that Rosenbaum at one point was convicted of sexually abusing at least one child before his death was true.
Next, we analyzed criminal records involving Huber, and determined it also accurate to state he was charged with domestic abuse. We uncovered a Kenosha County criminal complaint that outlined his first serious run-in with law enforcement, in December 2012. And per that complaint, Huber, who was 18 years old at the time, threatened his brother and grandmother at their home with a knife, choked the brother, and demanded that they follow his orders. The complaint said the brother wanted to take Huber to a hospital, apparently for emergency mental health help, but Huber resisted. In the end, he was charged with strangulation and suffocation and false imprisonment, both of which are felony crimes.
On another occasion, about three years later, Huber paid a roughly $150 citation or possessing drug paraphernalia, court records showed. Then, in 2018, Huber was charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor offense, after a fight with his sister at their house, per a criminal complaint by Kenosha prosecutors.
But unlike what many Rittenhouse supporters claimed, we could find no court evidence that Huber had sexually assaulted anyone.
Also false was the assertion that all three of the teenager’s victims were felons. Grosskreutz had not committed a felony crime, our analysis of court records showed.
He was, however, found guilty in 2016 of breaking Wisconsin’s law governing the use of dangerous weapons — a misdemeanor offense — per Milwaukee County court records. He had apparently gone somewhere “armed while intoxicated,” though the court records did not elaborate on what exactly had happened. Snopes requested a copy of the probable cause statement from county records administrators, but we have not yet obtained it.
Additionally, Grosskreutz at various points received tickets for minor offenses including disobeying police officers and making loud noises, the court records showed. However, no evidence showed he had indeed committed burglary, like supporters of the alleged killer claimed, though he had been arrested on suspicion of the crime in 2012. The felony charge was later dismissed, per Wisconsin Department of Justice’s criminal data.
In the interview with CNN, Grosskreutz said he has paid his debt for his past crimes and that he had every right to carry a gun at the Aug. 25 protest. “I’m not a felon,” he said. “I had a legal right to possess [a firearm] and to possess it concealed.”