Can Shellie Zimmerman testify against her husband in his murder trial

April 20, 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Good morning:

Today’s topic will be the husband-wife marital privilege. What is it? What does it cover? How does it apply to Shellie and George Zimmerman?

The husband-wife marital privilege is an evidentiary rule that protects confidential communications between spouses from disclosure to third parties. The purpose of the rule is to encourage open communication between spouses without fear that one spouse may be forced under penalty of law to disclose what the other said.

The privilege does not apply to all communications; it only applies to communications that were intended to be kept confidential.

Not all confidential communications are protected. For example, in Florida there is no privilege:

(a) In a proceeding brought by or on behalf of one spouse against the other spouse.

(b) In a criminal proceeding in which one spouse is charged with a crime committed at any time against the person or property of the other spouse, or the person or property of a child of either.

(c) In a criminal proceeding in which the communication is offered in evidence by a defendant-spouse who is one of the spouses between whom the communication was made.

See: FL Stat. 90.504(3)

Open communications between spouses in the presence of other people are not confidential. For example, anything the defendant may have stated to his wife in the presence of another person, such as Mark or Sondra Osterman or Frank Taaffe, regarding his encounter with Trayvon Martin before or after the shooting would not be privileged.

Communications between spouses during recorded jailhouse telephone calls are not privileged when the parties are warned at the beginning of the call that it will be recorded.

I believe an interesting argument can be made, pursuant to FL Stat. 90.504(3)(c), that Shellie Zimmerman can testify about disclosures by her husband regarding the alleged murder since she is a “defendant-spouse.” Even though she is a defendant in a different case, the two are related matters.

Certainly the argument is more powerful regarding the admissibility of any statements that her husband may have made to her about her alleged perjury because it occurred at the defendant’s bond hearing in an effort to conceal substantial assets exceeding $100,000 from the court, including a second passport that the defendant may have been planning to use to flee the jurisdiction to avoid prosecution.

Flight to avoid prosecution is admissible to show consciousness of guilt and, as Judge Lester noted in his order setting bail, the evidence supported an inference that only the fortuitous attachment of an ankle bracelet with a GPS device prior to the defendant’s release from jail may have prevented him from fleeing the United States with a valid passport and more than $100,000 of other people’s money.

Should the fortuitous circumstance that related criminal cases are pending against a husband and a wife under different cause numbers, instead of a single cause number, exclude application of section (3)(c)?

What do you think?

(H/T to Searching Mind for spotlighting this issue in comments this morning)

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206 Comments | fogen, George Zimmerman, Husband-Wife Privilege, Privileges, Shellie Zimmerman | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Dee Dee did not lie or commit perjury in Zimmerman case

March 5, 2013

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Before the beginning of today’s hearing in the Zimmerman case, the prosecution informed the defense that Dee Dee (the name given to Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend to protect her anonymity) did not go to a hospital instead of attending Trayvon’s funeral.

Judge Nelson dismissed the defense motion for Dee Dee’s medical records as moot.

The defense now claims that Dee Dee lied.

As the following partial transcript of her interview under oath by prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda conclusively demonstrates, she not lie or commit perjury.

BDLR:_ OK._ I’m not saying that they did._ I’m just making sure the records’ clear on that….Um…you obviously found out about what happened to Trayvon, right?_ And at some point you ended up knowing that he was killed, right?

Dee Dee:_ Yeah.

BDLR:_ Were you able to go to the funeral or to the wake?

Dee Dee:__I was goin’ to go, but…

BDLR:_ OK, what happened?

Dee Dee:__I didn’ feel good.

BDLR:_ OK, did you end up going to the hospital or somewhere?

Dee Dee:_ Mmmm…Yeah, I had high blood pressure.”

(Emphasis supplied)

The question is unclear because he asked if she went to a hospital or somewhere.

Therefore, her answer was not a lie and if it was not a lie, it certainly was not perjury.

Nevertheless, let us assume for the sake of argument that she did lie.

As I said in response to a comment by Unabogie,

I think you are being way too literal.

Lying is lying, by definition, but there is an unlimited number of reasons why people lie.

Intentionally lying to conceal the existence of more than a $100,000 in cash from the court during a bail hearing is, by any standard one might choose to apply, a far more serious matter than lying because you did not want to admit that you were too upset to attend a funeral.

I do not believe the prosecution is the least bit worried about this turn of events.

Proof of perjury requires proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant unambiguously lied under oath about a material matter.

BDLR’s question was ambiguous and DD’s response was not about a material matter, as is the case regarding Shellie Zimmerman’s denial under oath during a bail hearing that she did not know about the money she had transferred into her account.

Therefore, even if we assume for the sake of argument that Dee Dee lied, she did not commit and will not be charged with perjury.

Anyone who says she lied and committed perjury is mistaken and anyone who claims that Dee Dee is as guilty of perjury as Shellie Zimmerman is wrong and guilty of asserting false equivalencies.

As I said in an earlier comment this morning before I saw the transcript, I do not believe this development today changes anything.

I predict DD will be one of the last witnesses called by the State after all of the evidence about the shooting and the events that led up to it have been admitted into evidence.

She will simply be confirming what the evidence has already proven. BDLR will ask her about the false statement and she will probably break down and cry as she admits that she lied about that because she was too embarrassed to admit that she was too upset to attend the funeral.

I think the jury and everyone in the courtroom, except the defendant, will understand that and forgive her for lying.

I believe Sybrina will be the last witness because she is Trayvon’s mom and the emotional impact of her testimony will be extremely powerful.

After all is said and done, I do not think anyone will remember, much less care, that DD lied. It’s just not very important.

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129 Comments | Bail Hearing, Bernie de la Rionda, Character Assassination, Crime, DD's medical records, Dee Dee, Discovery, fogen, George Zimmerman, Importance of Listening, Judge Deborah Nelson, Mark O'Mara, Perjury, Shellie Zimmerman, Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Shellie Zimmerman Has No Defense to the Perjury Charge II

February 21, 2013

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Greetings everyone.

Searching Mind inspired me to write this post when he mentioned Nogues v. State, 762 So.2d 967 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000) in a comment and asked what effect it might have on the State’s perjury case against Shellie Zimmerman.

This is my answer to his comment.

Great catch coming up with the Nogues case where the Court reversed the defendant police officer’s conviction for perjury because the prosecution based its case on the testimony of only one witness. The Court said,

This testimony was not legally sufficient to establish the crime of perjury. It is a well-established principle of law that “a verdict of conviction in a perjury case must have for its support something more than the testimony of one witness.” Yarbrough v. State, 79 Fla. 256, 83 So. 873, 874 (1920). “To convict of the crime of perjury, the offense must be proved by the oaths of two witnesses, or by the oath of one witness, and by other independent and corroborating circumstances, which is deemed of equal weight with another witness.” Id. (citations omitted). See also Rader v. State, 52 So.2d 105, 108 (Fla. 1951) (“The falsity of the material matter sworn to must be proved by the oaths of two witnesses, or by the oath of one witness and other independent and corroborating circumstances which are of equal weight with the testimony of another witness.”); Wells v. State, 270 So.2d 399 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972) (same), cert. denied, 277 So.2d 533 (Fla.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1024, 94 S.Ct. 449, 38 L.Ed.2d 316 (1973).

Nogues was a former Miami police officer who was charged with making a false statement under oath “during a formal investigation of an extortion scheme directed at other officers and related to the “Miami River Cops” scandal. In that statement, Nogues denied that he was present at a meeting between George Fonte, Charles Orrett, Armando Garcia, and Dagoberto Garcia at the defendant’s house, held to discuss extorting money from one of them. Nogues asserted that such a meeting had “never occurred,” and that he was “never present in any of that stuff.”

The only witness who testified against him was Charles Orrett, “a Metro-Dade police officer who had agreed to cooperate with State and federal authorities. Orrett testified at trial that Nogues had indeed met with other police officers at his house to plan an extortion scheme.”

I believe Shellie Zimmerman’s case is covered by the other-independent-and-corroborating-evidence exception mentioned in Nogues because the State will be relying on Paypal records and the defendant’s and her own bank statements to corroborate what she said regarding their scheme to hide the Paypal donations from the Court by transferring the money into her account and his sister’s account structuring the transfer into a series of multiple transactions in amounts less than $10,000. I expect the evidence will show that she transferred $67,000 into her account and that money was in her account when she testified at the bond hearing.

364 Comments | Crime, Perjury, Shellie Zimmerman | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Shellie Zimmerman Has No Defense to the Perjury Charge

February 21, 2013

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Kelly Simms, the attorney who represents Shellie Zimmerman, predicted yesterday that a jury will find her not guilty of perjury. He said,

If you study carefully the questions she was asked, he said, she answered truthfully.

“It’s all about specificity,” he said.

I agree that the issue is all about specificity, but I do not agree with his prediction.

Keeping in mind that a witness is only required to truthfully answer the question asked and that any ambiguities or uncertainties in the question must be resolved in favor of the witness answering it, let us take a look at the exchange.

Here is Mark O’Mara questioning Shellie Zimmerman after she was duly sworn:

O’MARA: Another condition or another concern the court would have is a bond amount. I would ask you then realizing that one option is for the court to grant a monetary bond, if you could advise the court of your financial circumstances so I’ll ask you a couple of questions.

Are you working presently?

S. ZIMMERMAN: No, I’m not.

O’MARA: And how do you — what do you do with your time?

S. ZIMMERMAN: I am a nursing student.

O’MARA: OK. Is that a full-time endeavor presently? S. ZIMMERMAN: Yes, it is.

O’MARA: OK. How long have you been doing that?

S. ZIMMERMAN: Well, I am four weeks away from my graduation.

O’MARA: OK. So you’re not earning any income presently?

S. ZIMMERMAN: Correct.

O’MARA: Do you own the home that you live or lived in?

S. ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

O’MARA: Other major assets that you have which you can liquidate reasonably to assist in coming up with money for a bond?

S. ZIMMERMAN: None that I know of.

O’MARA: I discussed with you the pending motion to have your husband, George, declared indigent for cost, have I not?

S. ZIMMERMAN: Yes, you have.

O’MARA: Are you of any financial means where you could assist in those costs?

S. ZIMMERMAN: Not that I’m aware of.

Shellie Zimmerman transferred money from Paypal into the defendant’s account and then from his account into her account where she parked it for awhile until he bonded out and moved it back into his account. I believe she had $67 K in her account when she answered O’Mara’s question.

She cannot credibly deny that she knew she had $67 K in her account because she deposited it into her account.

I presume Sims will argue that she regarded that money to be the defendant’s property even though it was in her account. Therefore, she believed that she did not have any assets when she answered the question.

Good luck with that, Mr. Simms.

Shellie is not a vegetable. Absent some compelling testimony from a clinical psychologist supported by test results that her intellectual functioning is so impaired that she did not understand the questions and she compensated by pretending that she did in order to avoid humiliating herself by admitting that she did not know what he meant, I do not believe that a jury would acquit her.

Indeed, O’Mara asked straightforward questions and she did not exhibit any sign of confusion or ask him to clarify any question. She also stated that she was a full-time student in a nursing program and only four weeks away from graduating. No sign of impaired intellectual functioning or lack of comprehension is evident in her responses.

Moreover, she communicated with her husband in code and carried out a deceptive scheme involving multiple transfers of money over a short period of time in amounts less than $10,000. In other words, her conduct exhibits that she knows that she is playing a shell game with his money to help him conceal $67 K from creditors and the court by concealing it in her account.

I do not think a jury will be sympathetic, given her unapologetic and willing participation in that scheme.

Simms said, she is “getting stronger every day.” I hope that means she is becoming more assertive and her husband’s control is weakening. I believe it would be in her best interests to cut and run from him. She needs to get as far away as possible and resolve her perjury case without going to trial. He used her and she owes him nothing. She will be a helluva lot more sympathetic to prosecutors and the judge, if she acknowledges that he used her, expresses a willingness to cooperate and tell all, and asks for help.

I think that’s the only way she can avoid going to prison.

345 Comments | Crime, Perjury, Shellie Zimmerman | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Mark O’Mara Responds to AIS Lawsuit

January 29, 2013

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Jeff Weiner of the Orlando Sentinel reported today that Mark O’Mara has filed his Answer to the Associated Investigative Services’s lawsuit filed against him and George and Shellie Zimmerman for breach of contract.

He says O’Mara has denied most of the factual allegations in the complaint, but:

He does, however, admit several allegations:

• That he told AIS in August that “both George and the trustee [overseeing his defense fund] are clamping down” because “we have some very large expenses for the case coming up.”

O’Mara also said “George does not have any funds presently available to him to attend to any such debt, realizing the enormity of upcoming expenses of the defense and the diminished nature of the defense fund.”

• That AIS was “unable to obtain either a signed written retainer” with O’Mara, or the “outstanding balance on the services rendered.”

• That no payments have been made to AIS by O’Mara since August.

Weiner does not indicate if O’Mara’s answer was filed on behalf of the three defendants or just himself.

It’s difficult for me to tell what is going on or to make any predictions without reading the complaint and answer.

Apparently, he is admitting that there was an oral contract and he seems to be claiming that he warned the plaintiffs that his client was out of money, but it does not appear that the services were terminated or adjusted.

That does not seem like much of a defense to me and if George and Shellie cannot pay the bill, which they cannot, then O’Mara may be stuck with the bill.

That should be extremely depressing news to a man who claims to be working pro bono.

Equally if not more depressing should be the realization that no investigators or experts are going to agree to do any work for him unless he pays them up front. Since he cannot afford to do that, he will not be able to adequately prepare for trial. Therefore, he is setting himself up for a malpractice claim in addition to this lawsuit.

Mark O’Mara has 27,000 and counting reasons to ditch the defendant as a client and the longer he waits to pull the trigger, or file for an order of indigency to proceed at public expense, the deeper the doodoo.

He needs to act and he needs to act NOW.

306 Comments | AIS Lawsuit, George Zimmerman, Mark O'Mara, Shellie Zimmerman | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Why Has the Defense Team Gone Silent in the Trayvon Martin Murder Case?

January 23, 2013

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Good morning everyone. The defense team finally appears to be doing something that makes sense. They have stopped talking. Therefore, I do not have much to report.

The Orlando Sentinel has reported that the defense deposed John (W6) on December 17 and recently deposed Mary Cutcher and Selma Mora. The defense also reported on its website recently that it had received Trayvon Martin’s school records. I have not seen any reports regarding the defense reaction to those records and the depositions.

I imagine that the absence of commentary by the defense is due to the lack of anything bad to say about the prosecution’s case that has not already has been said and refuted.

I suspect the defense team is in turmoil because it’s running out of money and cannot afford to retain investigators and expert witnesses. The recent lawsuit filed by the company that provided security and investigation services against the defendant, his wife and Mark O’Mara to recover damages for breach of contract has placed every other service provider in the area on notice not to do business with O’Mara unless they get a substantial retainer up front adequate to cover the anticipated fees and costs. I doubt O’Mara can do that.

Meanwhile, there must be substantial and increasing resentment within the team regarding the amount of money spent for housing, feeding and protecting the defendant and his wife against an unlikely threat to their safety. I never have believed that a credible threat existed. Instead, I think they grossly overplayed the threat-to-safety and racial-fear cards to curry favor and sympathy with white racists while trolling for dollars on the internet.

The fogen’s incredibly bizarre and ill-advised claim that he is not a racist because he is part Hispanic makes no sense and it cost him the support of white racists who were the group most likely to support him. After all, this is the guy who used his My Space page to hate on Mexicans and consistently described himself as white before he killed Trayvon. And despite claiming otherwise, he clearly said “fucking coons” while referring to him on the recorded police NEN call. That fact alone blows up his civil suit against NBC.

The loss of financial support by white racists must have been devastating. However, one also must add the additional loss of moral support caused by the fogen’s effort to conceal his financial assets and an extra passport from the court. I imagine that a lot of people interpreted that move as an admission of guilt.

Last, but certainly not least, the fogen told the nation on the Hannity show that he did not regret killing Trayvon and would not do anything different, if he had the opportunity to do so because it was God’s Plan for Trayvon to die. Apparently convinced that he was riding a tsunami of public support because of his stellar performance on the show, he promptly overreached when he attempted to change his agreement with Barbara Walters at the last minute by refusing to be interviewed unless she persuaded her network to pay for a month lodging in a hotel for him and his wife, plus the cost of the security team to keep them safe. Apparently he did not get the memo that nobody does that to Barbara Walter. She basically told him to go pound sand.

Although the fogen finally shut-up, he had caused irreversible damage to his defense. No reason to panic, however. His formerly estranged brother, Robert Jr., stepped into the breach to save the day. Billing himself as the spokesperson for the family and voice of reason, he attempted to put out fogen’s fire by pouring gasoline on it with predictable results. They might have been manageable and excused as an understandable overreaction to a beloved brother’s plight, if only he had stayed out of the minibars in his hotel rooms. His epic drunken late night rages on twitter revealed a damned unpleasant and clueless racist with whom no sensible and empathetic person of any race anywhere on the planet would want to associate.

Given the extreme financial predicament and ongoing clown show, I suspect raised voices, finger pointing and extreme resentments are threatening to tear apart the defense team.

I do not see the fogen admitting that he did anything wrong and I suspect his lawyers have just about run out of patience, especially if they have been working pro bono as they claim.

No one had to be a psychic to see this train coming. I am actually surprised they have maintained the appearance of being on the same page and working together pursuing an agreed strategy toward a common goal.

Do not be surprised if the engine starts smoking and the wheels fall off forcing someone to announce that they have decided they need to spend more time with their family.

246 Comments | Admission of Guilt, Civil Lawsuit Against NBC, fogen, George Zimmerman, Mark O'Mara, Representing the Difficult Client, School Records, Shellie Zimmerman, Stupid Mistakes, Trayvon Martin | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

No Credible Threat to the Defendant’s Life or Safety Exists in Trayvon Martin murder case

December 26, 2012

Good morning and happy holidays to all of you.

I love blogging but it has developed into an obligation that leaves little time for me to do or think about anything else. My inattention to other responsibilities in my life reached a crisis about a week ago that forced me to suspend operations here. I am pleased to report that I can now return to blogging and I apologize for any inconvenience that my absence may have caused.

I believe interacting with all of you is the most important thing I do. That requires constant monitoring and response to your comments in addition to all of the time and effort that I expend producing new articles. This blog has developed from a hobby into a new career and I am grateful to all of you for participating in and supporting it. You have enriched my life and I hope that I have enriched yours in return.

Right now I am struggling with the time commitment and I sometimes refer to myself in conversations with others as a “prisoner of the blog.” I am obviously going to have to improve my time management skills because taking time off to put out fires is not a responsible or effective solution. Please bear with me as I adjust to the increasing demand for my time and attention.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle, I noticed a little story about a lawsuit filed in the Orange County Circuit Court last Friday against he-whose-name-shall-be-forgotten. The plaintiff is Associated Investigative Services, the company that has provided bodyguards for the defendant in the Trayvon Martin murder case. The company claims that he owes $27,000 for services provided. Presumably, those services were suspended some time ago for nonpayment. Termination of services is an extreme creditor’s remedy that typically is reserved for situations where no payments have been received for multiple billing periods and no agreement has been reached regarding when, if ever, payment will be made.

Mark O’Mara expressed “surprise” about the lawsuit. He said the company has been paid $40,000. Of course, that does not mean that the company is not owed an additional $27,000. Reading between the lines, I interpret his response as a tacit admission that his client owes money to the company.

According to the article that I read, the company was hired to provide security for the Zimmerman family in June and stopped receiving payments “after an independent trustee took over Zimmerman’s defense fund.”

In addition to the defendant, Mark O’Mara and Shellie Zimmerman are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

This lawsuit confirms my suspicion that contributions to the defense fund have stopped or slowed to a trickle and it also supports my argument that no credible threat to the defendant’s life or safety exists or ever has existed and the security firm was hired for the sake of appearances only in order to fool the court and the public into believing there was a credible threat.

I continue to be amazed that anyone believes this defendant and his lawyer.

Propaganda is not a defense to murder and sooner or later the defense is going to have to stop the bullshit and deal with the evidence.

143 Comments | George Zimmerman, Mark O'Mara, Propaganda, Shellie Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Zimmerman: Trial Date Set For June 10, 2013

October 17, 2012

Judge Debra Nelson set the trial date for June 10, 2013. The attorneys estimate the trial will last three weeks with jury selection taking more time the trial itself.

He is charged with murder second degree.

Defense counsel have been busy this week deposing prosecution witnesses. They will be back in court on Friday for a hearing regarding discovery issues, including the defense request for subpoenas for Trayvon Martin’s middle and high school records. The prosecution is objecting to the subpoenas on the grounds that the information sought is confidential and would be irrelevant and inadmissible at trial.

No trial date has been set yet for Shellie Zimmerman. She is charged with perjury allegedly committed at his bond hearing.

323 Comments | George Zimmerman, Shellie Zimmerman | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Zimmerman: The Case of the Useless Press Conference

August 13, 2012

Mark O’Mara raised expectations late last week with an announcement that he would have an important announcement to make Monday morning and would follow it up with a press conference.

Having raised expectations, he effectively dashed them with a bucket of ice cold water early Monday afternoon when he announced that he was filing for a writ of prohibition in the Court of Appeals to get Judge Lester off the case.

Nothing surprising about this continuing foolishness to unseat the judge who dared not praise George Zimmerman and his partner in perjury, Shellie Zimmerman.

The motion to disqualify did not pass the straight-face test and this latest effort does not even merit a yawn.

Why did he do it?

The only reason I can think of is that he’s still trolling for dollars from anyone still willing to contribute money so that George and Shellie can continue to live in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Therefore, we had to endure yet another repetition of the absurd self-defense claim and lives-in-danger nonsense that is growing tiresome and old.

Absolute waste of time.

I said long ago that only a racist would believe that an innocent 17-year-old boy walking home in the rain talking to his girlfriend, after walking to the store to buy his little brother some Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea, would suddenly for no apparent reason go psycho, start speaking in 10-20 year-old ghetto slang and B-movie dialect, attack, and attempt to kill with his bare hands an older menacing man following him who outweighed him by more than 40 pounds and whom he had successfully eluded by running away and hiding.

I’ll say it again.

Anyone who believes George Zimmerman is a racist.

Anyone who contributes money to his continuing dog-and-pony show is a racist and stupid.

359 Comments | Crime, George Zimmerman, Murder 2, Playing the Race Card as a Defense Strategy, Shellie Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

Should Mark O’Mara Withdraw as Counsel for George Zimmerman?

July 18, 2012

I believe Mark O’Mara should withdraw as counsel for George Zimmerman because he is not acting in his client’s best interests. Instead, he appears to be acting in what he perceives to be his own best interests by constantly talking to the press, making himself available for interviews by mainstream media TV, and making questionable pitches for dollars on his website to fund his effort to represent his client.

There also is the disturbing matter of whether he knew his client had raised a substantial sum of money from contributions by donors at his client’s original funding website (therealgeorgezimmerman.com).

On April 12th, Mark O’Mara filed Defendant’s Motion for Reasonable Bail asserting that his client was indigent.

On April 14th, during a recorded jailhouse conversation (Call 30) with someone identified as Scott.

George Zimmerman said.

GZ: Mark O’Mara is going to try and get me declared indigent. I told him that I didn’t think that was a possibility because you know there was the one possible transfer I tried to make and it got stopped, you know the $37. [37 is code for $37,000]

He said ‘well that doesn’t matter. Right now you are not working, not providing an income for your family, you are probably never going to be employable for the rest of your life. So basically they will declare you indigent.

Male: ah ah

GZ: So he knows about that. um But he …

Male: Does he know about the volume

GZ: No

Male: Ok

GZ: And uh …

Male: I’d like to keep that with us

GZ: Ok I think so too.

At the bond hearing on April 20th, Mark O’Mara did not disclose the $37,000. Instead, he represented to the court that his client had no money.

As we subsequently discovered, during the period between the phone call and the hearing, Shellie Zimmerman transferred $155,000 from the internet account into George Zimmerman’s personal account at a credit union and then she transferred that money into her personal account and his sister’s account, all pursuant to George Zimmerman’s explicit instructions. Therefore, on the date of the bail hearing, there was very little money in the internet account and George Zimmerman’s personal account. The money was transferred back into his personal account after he got out of jail. He then proceeded to spend $36,000 paying off some bills and purchasing two $300 smart phones with a two-year prepaid Verizon account and a two year internet access account, among other things.

Shellie Zimmerman testified by telephone at the bail hearing claiming she and her husband were indigent. She denied any knowledge of how much money, if any, had been donated to the internet account.

She has since been charged with perjury.

Judge Lester revoked George Zimmerman’s bond for misrepresenting his assets at the bond hearing.

In my opinion, any reasonably experienced and competent lawyer at this point would have backed off on the full court press to promote a false image of his client as a young and somewhat naive person “who was fearful and experienced a moment of weakness and who may also have acted out of a sense of betrayal by the system.” See Judge Lester’s Order Setting Bail below.

Nevertheless, at the second bail hearing on June 29th, Mark O’Mara attempted to excuse his client’s misconduct by saying he was exactly that.

Judge Lester did not buy it. Although he set bail in the amount of $1,000,000 based on Florida law that left him no other alternative (thereby brushing aside O’Mara’s presentation of character evidence as irrelevant) in his order setting bail, at page 2, he said:

Under any definition, the Defendant has flaunted the system. Counsel has attempted to portray the Defendant as being a confused young man who was fearful and experienced a moment of weakness and who may also have acted out of a sense of betrayal by the system. Based on all of the evidence presented, this Court finds the opposite. The Defendant has tried to manipulate the system when he has been presented the opportunity to do so. He is an adult by every legal definition; Trayvon Martin is the only male whose youth is relevant to this case. The Defendant has taken courses in criminal justice with the intention of becoming a police officer, an attorney, a judge, or a magistrate like his father. He has been arrested before, having entered and successfully completed a pretrial intervention program. He has also obtained an injunction and had an injunction obtained against him. The injunction against him has obviously been dissolved at some point for him to have validly obtained a permit to carry the firearm used to shoot Trayvon Martin. He also had the wherewithal to set up a website to collect donations to help defray the costs of his defense. Thus, before this tragic incident, the defendant had a very sophisticated knowledge of the criminal justice system over and above that of the average, law abiding citizen.

One would think, he would have breathed a sigh of relief that his client bailed out and reconsidered the wisdom of placing his client’s character in evidence before the court of public opinion.

Nope. He doubled down and while doing so, he forgot to appeal and seek a stay from Judge Lester’s order directing the prosecution to release incredibly damaging evidence to the public; specifically, W9′s claim that George Zimmerman (her cousin) had sexually molested her multiple times over a period of 10 years when she was 6-16 years old. Zimmerman was two-years older.

That evidence exploded on the public two days ago and now he’s going to appear with George Zimmerman on the Sean Hannity Show to discuss the case and no doubt trash W9.

Meanwhile, he made the following pitch on his website:

For those who have given in the past, for those who have thought about giving, for those who feel Mr. Zimmerman was justified in his actions, for those who feel they would do the same if they were in Mr. Zimmerman’s shoes, for those that think Mr. Zimmerman has been treated unfairly by the media, for those who feel Mr. Zimmerman has been falsely accused as a racist, for those who feel this case is an affront to their constitutional rights — now is the time to show your support.

He also filed Defendant’s Verified Motion to Disqualify Trial Judge alleging that Zimmerman fears getting a fair SYG hearing before Judge Lester because the judge said bad things about him and is obviously prejudiced against him.

As the prosecution noted at page 8 in its Response to the Defendant’s Verified Motion to Disqualify Trial Judge,

On June 1st, he told Anderson Cooper of CNN News:

There is no question that they knew about the money, actually in a previous correspondence to the judge, we had acknowledged that. The question of whether or not they had presented it properly, I think it was somewhat misleading to the court. I’ve gone over that with George.

On June 3rd, the Orlando Sentinel reported:

O’Mara acknowledged the problem his client faces in securing a new bond. “There is a credibility question that needs to be explained away,” he said. O’Mara added that “Zimmerman’s credibility has been tarnished and he will have to rehabilitate it.”

On June 4th, he posted the following statement on his website (gzlegalcase.com):

While Mr. Zimmerman acknowledges that he allowed his financial situation to be misstated in court . . . The audio recordings of Mr. Zimmerman’s phone conversations while in jail make it clear that Mr. Zimmerman knew that a significant sum had been raised by his original funding website.”

On June 29th, ABC Action News reported:

This prosecutor has made a very specific showing that his case is strong,” O’Mara said. “It was important for us to counter that.”

Since he makes no valid legal argument in support of the relief he requests, I expect Judge Lester will deny the motion.

Filing a frivolous motion did not help his client.

The Rules of Professional Conduct mandate that a lawyer shall represent the best interests of the client to the best of his ability.

I see a lawyer who has placed self-interest in surfing media attention to fame and fortune above the best interests of his client. He acts like a moth driven to the flame and I see nothing good coming out of this for himself and his client. I therefore think he needs to withdraw.

George Zimmerman appears to be the quintessential difficult client who probably wants and may even be directing O’Mara to do these things. But public revulsion and disgust are not in his best interest.

He needs to shut up and so does his lawyer.

99 Comments | Bail Hearing, Crime, George Zimmerman, Murder 2, Perjury, Playing the Race Card as a Defense Strategy, Representing the Difficult Client, Self-defense, Shellie Zimmerman, Stand Your Ground, Trayvon Martin, Uncharged Misconduct | Permalink
Posted by masonblue

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