Social media posts say Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all fees in a deadly 2020 taking pictures in Kenosha, Wisconsin, submitted a declare to have authorized possession over tv and film star Whoopi Goldberg’s residence.
A Nov. 18 Fb submit mentioned, “Kyle Rittenhouse registers a lien towards Whoopi Goldberg’s Malibu residence for $22 million.”
Different Fb and Threads posts additionally shared the identical declare.
However the declare within the posts that present Rittenhouse and Goldberg, a co-host of ABC’s “The View” speak present, originated as satire.
(Screenshot from Fb submit.)
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The posts had been flagged as a part of Meta’s efforts to fight false information and misinformation on its Information Feed. (Learn extra about our partnership with Meta, which owns Fb, Instagram and Threads.)
Within the yr since Rittenhouse’s acquittal, a number of false claims have surfaced saying he has sued some speak reveals and hosts for defamation. One — fictitious lawsuit he was mentioned to have filed was towards “The View,” Goldberg and co-host Pleasure Behar in 2021.
Now the claims have gone a bit farther, saying that as a result of he received a lawsuit towards Goldberg and she or he didn’t pay Rittenhouse for the supposed settlement, he has put a lien towards her Malibu, California, residence.
We discovered that though Goldberg as soon as owned a house in Malibu, she bought it in 2002. She purchased a house in New Jersey.
A lien is a authorized proper to a debtor’s property that’s usually used as a collateral when the debtor doesn’t pay a settlement or mortgage. If the particular person doesn’t pay, the creditor can seize the property. Liens may also be established by courtroom judgments on account of a lawsuit and by authorities entities, in accordance to Investopedia.
The declare originated in Dunning-Kruger Occasions.com, a subsidiary of the “America’s Final Line of Protection” community of parody and satire, in accordance to its web site. The story, revealed in July 2023, has the identical headline as the image on the Fb submit and jokes about how a made-up reporter went to verify the neighborhood the place the house is listed, however that it doesn’t exist.
The satirical article additionally supposedly quotes Rittenhouse’s legal professional Joe Barron concerning the lien, however his legal professional is Mark Richards. In 2023, Richards, Rittenhouse’s protection legal professional, informed Reuters the declare Rittenhouse put a lien on Goldberg’s house is “not true.”
PolitiFact contacted Richards to verify that the declare continues to be inaccurate in 2024, however didn’t obtain a reply by publication. Nevertheless, we discovered no official bulletins from Rittenhouse, public paperwork or credible sources within the Nexis information database that present he sued Goldberg.
The declare that Rittenhouse registered a lien towards Goldberg’s Malibu residence began as satire, so we fee this declare False.
