In a phone interview Thursday with Fox News Digital, the lawyer who represented Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann during his defamation cases has joined Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal team, saying there will be “at least 10” defamation lawsuits against prominent figures like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and companies for comments against the teenager.
“I’ve been hired to head the effort to determine whom to sue, when to sue, where to sue,” Todd McMurtry said. “We’re going to look at everything that’s been said, determine which of those comments are legally actionable and proceed from there.”
McMurtry said it’s “pretty much assured that there’s probably 10 to 15 solid” cases against “large defendants.”
Rittenhouse was charged with two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide, and other charges after fatally shooting two men and injuring another during the Kenosha riots of 2020. He was ultimately acquitted of all charges in November of last year.
“Let’s just use for an example what Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg said about [Rittenhouse]. They said that he was involved in a mass murder incident,” McMurtry explained. “This was not a mass murder incident. It was clearly factually false.”
“To call somebody a mass murderer is seriously defamatory. And then to use the power of social media to basically … censor any views that would take opposition to that mass murderer statement is a serious effort to destroy his character. And it was seriously mistaken and seriously defamatory.”
McMurtry added that Zuckerberg is “certainly going to be at the top of your list” when examining what potentially false statements are legally actionable “because he has an outsized voice.”