Posted on 06/01/2012 11:50:10 AM PDT by Lurker
ORLANDO, Fla. (WLS) - Prosecutors asked a judge Friday to revoke the bond of the neighborhood watch volunteer charged with killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Prosecutors said in a motion that 28-year-old George Zimmerman and his family misled them about his finances when testifying during a bail hearing that allowed him to be released from jail on a $150,000 bond. Prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda asked for the revocation during a hearing to help determine if prosecutors and the defense can stop the public release of certain documents in the case.
During the bond hearing in April, Zimmerman's relatives testified they had limited funds. Zimmerman's attorney said several days later that he had discovered his client had raised more than $200,000 from a website. At the time of the hearing, about $135,000 had been raised, and that money wasn't disclosed at the bond hearing.
"This court was led to believe they didn't have a single penny," said Prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda. "It was misleading and I don't know what words to use other than it was a blatant lie."
Defense attorney Mark O'Mara said it was an innocent misunderstanding and that Zimmerman wasn't using that money for his expenses and wasn't sure what he could use the money for. He said Zimmerman used the houses of his parents and grandmother as collateral for the bond.
Prosecutors also said in the motion that Zimmerman didn't disclose he had a second passport. Zimmerman turned his passport over to the court at the bond hearing as a measure that would prevent him from fleeing the country.
Zimmerman is pleading not guilty to second-degree murder and claims self-defense. Zimmerman shot Martin last February during a confrontation at a gated community of townhouses in Sanford, Fla., where Zimmerman lived and where Martin was visiting his father's fiancee.
The delay in an arrest for 44 days prompted protests nationwide and led to Sanford's police chief stepping aside so emotions could cool down.
At Friday's hearing, De la Rionda and O'Mara also asked a judge to stop the public release of witness names and statements made by Zimmerman to police officers. Those documents normally are part of the public record under Florida law.
"What's occurring, unfortunately, are cases are being tried in the public sector as opposed to in the courtroom," De La Rionda told Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester. "We are in a new age with Twitter, Facebook, and all these things I've never heard of before in my career.
Everybody gets to find out intimate details about witnesses that never occurred before. Witnesses are going to be reluctant to get involved."
A consortium of more than a dozen media groups, including The Associated Press, asked the judge to ignore the request, saying such records are presumed to be publicly available under Florida law.
Rachel Fugate, an attorney for the Orlando Sentinel, cited the Casey Anthony trial as an example of a highly publicized case in which a jury was able to be seated despite intense media coverage. The Florida mother was acquitted last year of killing her 2-year-old daughter.
"Discovery in Florida has traditionally been open ... and Florida hasn't encountered problems seating juries and giving defendants fair trials," Fugate said.
O'Mara said Friday on a website that he doesn't expect the case to be ready for trial until next year.
O'Mara said he expects to call on 50 witnesses who need to be deposed before he decides whether to file a "stand your ground" motion which would ask for a hearing before a judge without a jury. At the hearing, Zimmerman would argue self-defense under the Florida law which gives wide latitude to use deadly force rather than retreat in a fight if people believe they are in danger of being killed or seriously injured.
The Associated Press Contributed To This Report
The judge gave him 48 hours to report to jail.
I figured the passport issue would be easily explained. The Paypal, maybe not so much.
Unless you’ve had a long standing account, where these kinds of transactions are typical, Paypal can, and does limit when and how much is transfered. They can hold funds for 30 days.
It’s entirely possible there may have been $135k in the account, on the day of the bail hearing, with George having access to only a fraction of the funds.
What “government babble”? All I’m saying is that, if/when Zimmerman is acquitted of the charges currently pending against him, he is not going to then be charged with perjury. How is that “government babble”? What are you talking about?
Every black in jail, will have a duty to kill him. It was so unfortunate...
It's a win win for the prosecution. Concoct anything that comes up....hopefully, he'll be silenced before trial.
Kill him...Set um up...It’s the only way out for government .
What this information suggests to me, is a very fearful man, distrustful of his government’s intention to protect him, readying for the possibility of having to abscond to save his life.Yours is an excellent summary - a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.
1. He has a bounty on his head ‘dead or alive.’
2. Eric Holder has refused to do a thing about the threats from the New Black Panthers.
3. Obama has spoken sympathetically in regards to a person he had to defend his life against, and who could have been whacked out on ghetto ‘lean.’(Google it)
I have no idea what is going on in Zimmerman’s mind right now, but I’d suspect much of it is not pleasant viewing.
What would the average citizen do - how would his mind process waking up to such a bizarre, upside-down, evil reality?
I mean, one day GZ is involved in a violent, deadly confrontation with a thug, the police and local authorities appear to have sorted everything out, but then... days (weeks?) later the race-baiters rewrite the narrative, and a wailing and gnashing of teeth commences.
Mr. Zimmerman finds himself metaphorically shoved into a boxcar and deposited upon the threshold of hell, with jackboots of justice-for-trayvon crushing his skull and kicking him through the gate. All the while the President of these United States stands in authority at the scene, nodding with approval.
I can see why any human about to be sacrificed upon the altar of Obamanation would default to the basic instinct of survival. There's no reasoning with animals.
Sympathetic to hell! The AG is in cahoots with the bounty hunters.But that is what the voters want, that is what the majority of those that voted in 2008 voted for.
Zimmerman's goose was cooked when the "justus"bros mistook him for being White because of his name. Then the "lynch zimmerman" mob of self hating Whites and members of this forum formed.
I can't say if it would have happened in Sanford or Miami but at least one individual can thank Zimmerman forsaving their life, because as sure as the sun rises in the Rast, obama's son would have killed one or more persons before he turned 21.
Thanks for the response.
Seems like an odd way to do things...but the judicial system is odd I guess.
I'm done...This is all concocted shit, knowing they have zip against zim.. So bring in all the big gov attacks...He didnt do this and that...Get his ass back in jail....Maybe something will happen...He's dead...Whooops...no trial...
They did not have shit against him all along. If the self hating white Liberals had not teamed up with the msm and America’s favorite race baiters and certain members of this forum, Zimmerman would be walking around now.But the msm and race baiters saw this incident as a way to attack Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law” and the others in monkey see, monkey do fell in line. Add in Florida’s current politicians not having any guts and it ends up in Zimmerman getting royally screwed. Not for what he done, but who he did it to.
The Big Banks routinely lied to the courts about foreclosure documents. Where did you stand on that issue?
Jon Corzine is a criminal. How come he's not under arrest?
If "the courts" were on fire, I wouldn't relieve myself on them to put it out.
Claptrap. I've always maintained the courts are corrupt, self-serving clownshows.
I'm not out to "get" outspoken liberals. They have a right to their opinions, and since the entire American legal system is corrupt, their rights are at risk in front of the court clownshow, too.
Martha Stewart, an outspoken liberal, was shafted by the thugs in the legal system.
Wall Street & the Big Banks commit dozens of crimes worse than hers daily. If Stewart wanted to hide some assets from the lawless thugs in the courts, I'd be all for it.
Oh, now you want old judges and prosecutors to have to learn how to use the Intertubes to get information?
For shame! It's discrimination against doddering old fools, that's what it is!
I think this is right on target. If Zimmerman's legal team can delay until after the election, the pressure will be off and it will probably go away quietly. Obviously if they can get him back into jail that would be harder to do.
How long was he in jail before he was on bond? Why now since it’s been several weeks since he was in jail. Did he run?!
Just remember - no matter how unfair to Zimmerman - he was a registered Democrat. So win-win.
O/T, but good question.
Bernie Madoff's "victims" are not victims in the same class with Corzine's victims. People who invested with Bernie knew or should have known that something was not right. In the case of Corzine, that's not true. That makes Governor Corzine a worse person than Madoff.
Basically, there are two old passports. One of them had been reported lost, so technically already expired when given to the judge in April, but on its face, it expired May 2012. The other one was obtained in 2004 and expires sometime in 2014.
No way he got the 2004 passport anticipating a need to flee in 2012.
O'Mara, on CNN, said that the 2004 passport has been in his possession since April.
O'MARA: On the 26th when I first talked to George, coincidentally I was talking to him about the money and the check. He told me about a second passport. That they had found when they left the state. They gathered up all their belonging. Left the state. Uncovered the second passport.CNN Anderson Cooper, June 1, 2012He told me about that. He forwarded to me in a fed ex package the second passport and the check at one time. As it turns out, we have good documentation that it came to me on the 26th. On the 27th I did a notice of filing to give that to the court file. We were at court and literally it was left in my pleading file until this morning when Bernie, the prosecutor first said to me, we found out about this second passport. I said, hold on, I have it. And I've had it since the 27th or 26th of April. My apologies, but it's always been here.
There is almost always a good reason for any given legal policy - not that the policy always fits the circumstance at hand.
An accused is entitled to bail he can afford. If bail is set too high, then the accused is imprisoned until guilt is established. Intuitively, that's okay for those who are guilty in fact, and are found guilty. Why have bail at all, for them, just jail 'em.
But if bail is set so high that few people can pay it (say, 100 million dollars, across the board), then everybody swept up by the state sits in jail until trial. So, the general rule is a setting of bail so high that if the defendant doesn't appear voluntarily, he "loses everything." At the same time, he is allowed to put his "everything" up as security for his promise to appear.
If bail is set low, then it isn't much incentive to appear voluntarily - although fleeing is a serious offense of its own right.
Anyway, sliding scale, or accounting for defendant's assets, is common in "big bail" cases. Not so much for misdemeanor crimes, where bail is set low enough (no sliding scale) that almost everybody can afford to pay it. No sense in bothering a judge to find the amount of bail for 200 DUI's a week, etc.
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