First off, remember that he suborned perjury among at least one witness. He failed to turn over proper evidence, and he hid the identity of the so-called jump-kick man who attacked Kyle that night. Now we learn that Gaige Grosskreutz had charges dropped by the same prosecutor.
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger was well aware of this when he paraded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28, the third man shot on the night of August 25, 2020, as a paragon of selfless virtue. He was a paramedic, the court heard, just there that evening to provide medical aid, as he claimed to have done at countless other protests across the country.
In fact, DailyMail.com has learned, he is a violent career criminal with a laundry list of prior offenses and convictions stretching back more than a decade.
These include domestic abuse, prowling, trespass, two DUIs, felony burglary and two charges of carrying a firearm while intoxicated – one of which took place when he was banned as a felon from carrying a firearm.
He also has a history of showing disdain for the law by lying to, and failing to co-operate with, police.
But the Rittenhouse jury heard none of this.
Because just six days before he took the stand, Grosskreutz was before a judge himself at a hearing at which a pending DUI charge – a second offense that saw him three times over the legal limit – was dismissed on a technicality.
To no one’s surprise, he is also a gun controller.
The issue is whether you can drive with a loaded handgun within reach, even without having a concealed carry permit.
Guy A. Smith, a 52-year-old commercial truck driver from Merrill, believes, as does a gun rights organization, that you can. That’s why he said he made no effort to hide his revolver when inspectors entered his big rig at a weigh station in Pleasant Prairie in June 2016.
Inspectors saw it on the floor of his cab via an overhead camera, then approached Smith and cited him for carrying a concealed weapon, a misdemeanor, and seized his gun.
Smith was represented by John Monroe, a Georgia-based attorney who has successfully defended many gun rights advocates, including those charged with openly carrying guns before Wisconsin’s passage of Act 35, which first allowed for concealed carry with a license.
The organization Wisconsin Carry Inc. was paying for Smith’s defense because it thought it might eliminate some law enforcement confusion about the statutes.
“The charge should never have been filed because in 2011 the Legislature changed the law to allow handguns in cars to be unencased and loaded,” Monroe said in an email Monday. “Carrying a concealed weapon is no longer a crime applicable to handguns in vehicles.
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The first time Smith was set for trial, last fall, Kenosha County prosecutors asked for more time after learning Smith planned to argue that a different Wisconsin statute specifically approves of carrying a loaded handgun in a vehicle.
The statute on transport of weapons reads, ” … no person may place, possess, or transport a firearm, bow, or crossbow in or on a vehicle, unless one of the following applies: 1. The firearm is unloaded or is a handgun.”
Monroe had prepared a second defense as well: Wisconsin’s so-called castle doctrine that lets people use a gun — without a permit — to protect themselves in their home, car or business. For a truck driver like Smith, his cab is at times all three.
The assistant district attorney at November’s hearing, Thomas Binger, suggested Smith could easily have gotten a concealed carry permit.
After that hearing, Smith said he didn’t get one because he didn’t need to.
“I’m just a trucker trying to stay alive,” he said. “I want my gun back, and I don’t want a record, and I’m not paying a fine. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Doing something wrong or violating the law has nothing to do with it when Thomas Binger is involved. He’s on a mission.