Lake County, IL BLM founder Clyde J. McLemore (D), 62, of Zion, IL is going to trial this December. He faces one felony count of attempted battery to a law enforcement officer and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. According to the criminal complaint, Mayor John Antaramian (D) held a press conference at the public safety building on August 24, 2020. An unruly crowd formed and attempted to force its way into the building. A Kenosha police officer, who has served on the department for about 13 years, was attempting to shut the front door of the public safety building when McLemore kicked the front door of the building closed and bragged that he was trying to break the officer’s fingers. This incident is on video from many different angles. Seems like a long shot for any type of defense.

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BLM sympathizer, Kenosha DA Michael Graveley, asked the Walworth County DA to prosecute this case due to a conflict. They will handle the trial.

In court today, the prosecutor, Walworth County DA Zeke Wiedenfeld, attempted to convince the judge to allow “other acts evidence.” Other acts evidence is evidence not directly relating to this case, but that tends to show the defendets intent or motive regarding the charged crime.

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McLemore told KCE that he had more than the 10 felony convictions, which we found in a background check. After the Rittenhouse verdict, he told KCE and a crowd of protesters that he “had more than 20 [felonies].” KCE cannot verify these allegations as a lot of his arrests span over the last 45 years and some records get purged after 20 and 30 years.

On February 11, 2008, in Lake County, Il, McLemore arrived late to court and got into a fight in the courthouse with a deputy. He resisted arrest and ran. He got into a vehicle with a handcuff hanging from his hand and took off, dragging the deputy. The deputy was injured. McLemore was charged with felony aggravated battery of a police officer.

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Prosecutors wanted to tell the jury about this incident to show the jury that he intended to hurt Officer Winter, the Kenosha Officer who is the victim in this case.

After a hearing today, Judge Jason Rossell denied the prosecutor’s motion to allow this evidence to come in. KCE spoke to many criminal defense attorneys about the judge’s ruling. They were split 50/50 on if the motion should have been granted. Criminal defense attorney Michael D. Cicchini, who has published an article on “other acts evidence” in the Florida Law Review, said that there is a tremendous amount of judicial discretion in such motions. “Virtually any motion could go either way,” Cicchini said. Today Judge Rossell said the two instances were too dissimilar.

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Clyde found himself a far-left activist attorney named Deja Vishny (D). She filed a nine-page motion to dismiss to Judge Jason Rossell. He denied it and she appealed. She lost the appeal. In this motion, she says that “[the black] community suffered ill treatment at the hands of the Kenosha Police Department for a lengthy period of time.” She also claims the Walworth County District Attorney Zeke Wiedenfeld is intending to “smear the Black Lives Matter movement or political speech by African-Americans.” Later in the motion she admits that her client did indeed kick the front door of the public safety building, but claims that “the act of kicking the door in this manner was a type of nonverbal protest expression that the state may not prohibit” and later “the act of kicking a door during a protest is analogous to burning a flag during a protest.” What she fails to mention is that a police officer had his hand on the door and police believe he was trying to break the officer’s hand and/or fingers during the kick. He also bragged about trying to harm the officer on Facebook.

Today Vishney also wanted to preclude Officer Winter from being in the court room for the trial. She said he isn’t a victim. Rossell quickly dismissed this assertion and ruled he can be in the room per Marsy’s law.

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McLemore’s trial is set for December 19, 2022 at 8:30am.