What’s True and False About Kyle Rittenhouse’s Alleged Victims

 https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/09/11/rittenhouse-victims-records/

In attempt to justify the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old accused of shooting three people, killing two, with a semi-automatic rifle during a protest on Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin — Americans on the political right launched a grassroots effort to uncover any evidence to deny the shooting victims martyrdom among opponents.

The makeshift investigations revealed what hardline conservatives believed to be proof of criminal wrongdoing by the deceased — Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36 —as well as by Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, who shot was shot in the arm and survived. One blog post alleged:

 

For example, yes, at age 19, Rosenbaum was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing five children — all boys between the ages of 9 and 11 — in Arizona’s Pima County in early 2002, according to his case file obtained via a public records request by Snopes.

The documents said Rosenbaum was temporarily living with the boys’ parents after his mother had kicked him out for disobeying her rules about one month earlier. Over the course of his weeks-long stay, Rosenbaum molested the boys, showed them porn, and performed oral sex on them, among other offenses, the documents showed. He was sentenced to prison for roughly 15 years, and authorities believed at the time “his risk to recidivate being of great concern to the community” considering the victims’ gender and age. (Let us note here: The records included an interview with Rosenbaum in which he said his stepfather sexually abused him and his brother on an almost daily basis when he was a preteen.)

Considering that evidence, the claim that Rosenbaum at one point was convicted of sexually abusing at least one child before his death was true.