Do you think Zimmerman will be convicted of murder?

After the fact: Zimmerman's wife charged, what it could mean for his defense?
Patrik Jonsson | The Christian Science Monitor |
Jun 13, 2012

George Zimmerman’s defense team has a new, difficult challenge as it prepares for trial in the Trayvon Martin murder case: how to explain an alleged conspiracy involving the defendant's wife, Shellie Zimmerman, and the couple's attempt to keep secret a massive cache of donated funds?

Ms. Zimmerman posted bond on Tuesday after being charged with one count of perjury for allegedly lying to Florida Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester on April 20 when she claimed poverty, even as the couple was communicating by phone about moving more than $130,000 in donated defense funds between various bank accounts.

Ms. Zimmerman’s arrest came two weeks after Judge Lester revoked Mr. Zimmerman’s bond and sent him back to jail for failing to “properly respect the law [and] the integrity of the judicial process” and for sitting “like a potted plant” while leading “the court down the primrose path” with "material falsehoods" about his finances.

The case against Mr. Zimmerman comes down to credibility, as he appears to be the only solid witness to the events of Feb. 26, when he shot and killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, in a case that sparked a national debate about racial profiling and gun rights.

Ms. Zimmerman’s arrest and Mr. Zimmerman's revoked bond came after a trove of evidence – including medical evidence and eyewitness accounts – that seemed to support Mr. Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense: that Trayvon attacked him with a ferocity that made Zimmerman fear for his life.

Given that Mr. Zimmerman has now angered the judge, raised the ire of prosecutors, and created new questions in the public – and a potential jury pool – about his credibility, his defense team, led by Orlando attorney Mark O’Mara, will face a fresh and difficult struggle to separate the facts of the case from the defendant’s foibles, legal experts say.

"The couple “really seized defeat from the jaws of victory,” says Scott Greenfield, a New York defense lawyer who has blogged about the Trayvon Martin case and Mr. Zimmerman’s defense. “Clearly, anything that suggests that he’s been deceptive is going to create huge problems for his credibility at trial, and there’s a risk that these questions of whether George Zimmerman is a liar, whether his wife is a liar, whether it’s just all a bunch of lies, could finally resolve a lot of the ambiguity of this case.”

Prosecutors say that just before the April bond hearing, Ms. Zimmerman moved $74,000 in eight smaller amounts – all under $10,000, the point at which the Internal Revenue Service is alerted – from her husband’s account to her own. Days later, Ms. Zimmerman testified by phone at the bond hearing that the couple was basically penniless because they had little savings and George had had to quit his job after the uproar over the shooting.

After the hearing, Ms. Zimmerman used a series of smaller transactions to move another $85,500 from the account, which had been filled through PayPal donations from supporters going to “The Real George Zimmerman” website. Mr. O’Mara has since closed that site and replaced it with an independently managed website.

On Wednesday, O’Mara made his first public statement after Ms. Zimmerman’s arrest, saying he and Mr. Zimmerman are worried about her safety after she left the Seminole County jail. O’Mara has earlier said that the couple was “confused” and “fearful” as Florida prosecutors reversed a local decision to let Mr. Zimmerman go and instead decided to charge him with second-degree murder, a crime for which, if convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

O’Mara’s challenge will be to explain to future jurors the couple’s state of mind, while steering the case back toward the facts at hand, says Mr. Greenfield.

“One of the hardest things is to understand what goes through the mind of a defendant in a high-profile case,” he says. “He probably didn’t have a firm grip on who to trust or what to trust, whether the system itself was trustworthy. There’s a lot of paranoia that tends to permeate attitudes toward the criminal justice system that can cause people to make some poor choices. Once they feel more comfortable with either the system or their lawyer, they come to realize that these choices were pretty boneheaded.”

O’Mara and Mr. Zimmerman return to face Judge Lester on June 29, when the court will review the bond revocation. O'Mara will likely take that opportunity to try to undo some of the damage to Mr. Zimmerman’s credibility and to try to steer the judge – and the American public – back to the facts of the case.

In front of a nation that watched as “Justice for Trayvon” became a rallying cry for thousands of protesters across the country, O'Mara will have a difficult task to rebuild the Zimmermans’ credibility, legal analysts say.

Indeed, the couple's problems may multiply if authorities find that Ms. Zimmerman willfully structured the cash transfers to avoid alerting the IRS, Jeffrey Neiman, a former federal prosecutor, told the Associated Press. Such diversions, he says, could lead to “serious federal criminal charges.”

“You can’t perpetrate this kind of fraud on the court and expect there’s not going to be consequences,” Florida legal analyst Bill Sheaffer told WFTV, a news station in Orlando.
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/after-fact-zimmermans-wife-charged-what-it-could-mean-his-defense

That he may have lied to the court about money isn't really relevant to the shooting.

A potential 15 year sentence sounds like a bargaining tool to me.

And from what I can understand, without donations received before the date of the bond hearing, the Zimmermans would not have had enough to pay bail. Was the judge trying to set bail too high for them to be able to pay it? Was the idea that George simply should not be released? So because of the donations, Zimmerman's wife was able to transfer enough money to her account to go pay the bail bondsman. Without the donations she couldn't have gotten him out of jail. She's in jail because George's bail wasn't high enough?

Geez, we could all be in jail!

Sure, I have enough to pay all my medical bills as long as I don't pay my utilities, mortgage, car loan, or buy food, gas, clothing, or any personal necessities and if I cash out every single thing I have and don't pay the tax penalty or mind not having life insurance.

The man can't work. She's a student. He has legal bills out the wazoo. They are only surviving this because of donations. And the prosecutor is worried that he's too rich.

I can tell you about a lot of wives who don't have a clue how much money they have.

She could be guilty. But once again, I'm not willing to assume guilt just because some prosecutor made charges against her.

I always think of the Duke Lacrosse team when the mob is willing to be judge and jury before any evidence is presented.

And from what I can understand, without donations received before the date of the bond hearing, the Zimmermans would not have had enough to pay bail. Was the judge trying to set bail too high for them to be able to pay it? Was the idea that George simply should not be released? So because of the donations, Zimmerman's wife was able to transfer enough money to her account to go pay the bail bondsman. Without the donations she couldn't have gotten him out of jail. She's in jail because George's bail wasn't high enough?

I can tell you about a lot of wives who don't have a clue how much money they have.

Without the donations she couldn't have gotten him out of jail.

And the prosecutor is worried that he's too rich.

She could be guilty. But once again, I'm not willing to assume guilt just because some prosecutor made charges against her.

I always think of the Duke Lacrosse team when the mob is willing to be judge and jury before any evidence is presented.

On Tuesday, 25-year-old Shellie Zimmerman was charged with perjury, a third-degree felony that is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. She was released on bond herself.

Earlier this month, the judge said in a sharply worded ruling that George Zimmerman and his wife had lied about how much money they had at a hearing that resulted in his release on $150,000 bond. He’s now back in jail after the judge revoked the bond.

George Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the teen’s slaying. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester ordered Zimmerman returned to the Seminole County Jail and revoked his bond June 1. He had been free since late April.

George Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara has said the couple was confused and fearful when they misled court officials about how much money they had. A call and email to him Tuesday weren’t immediately returned.

Records show that in the days before the bond hearing, Shellie Zimmerman transferred $74,000 in eight smaller amounts ranging from $7,500 to $9,990, from her husband’s credit union account to hers, according to an arrest affidavit. It also shows that $47,000 was transferred from George Zimmerman’s account to his sister’s in the days before the bond hearing.

Four days after he was released on bond, Shellie Zimmerman transferred more than $85,500 from her account into her husband’s account, the affidavit said. The affidavit also said jail call records show that George Zimmerman instructed her to “pay off all the bills,” including an American Express and Sam’s Club card.

A state attorney investigator met with credit union officials and learned she had control of transfers to and from her husband’s account.

Jeffrey Neiman, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said cash transactions in excess of $10,000 usually trigger a reporting requirement by the bank to multiple government agencies — including the IRS.

“If Mrs. Zimmerman intentionally structured the financial transactions in a manner to keep the offense under $10,000, not only may she have committed perjury in the state case, but she also may have run afoul of several federal statutes and could face serious federal criminal charges,” Neiman wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/george-zimmermans-wife-charged-with-perjury-over-finances/2012/06/13/gJQAjBdzZV_story.html

It's relevant to the issue of his credibility about the shooting.

I can tell you about a lot of wives who don't have a clue how much money they have.

@firefly,
Sorry deal there is no question in my mind that those charges on his wife are going to be use by the state as a tool to try to force a plea deal of some kind out of Zimmerman so they can save face.

Not an uncommon means of forcing a plea deal out of one member of a couple and once more we have a let make a deal justice system.

The prosecutor Corey is going to go down and go down hard.

She could be guilty. ...

She could be guilty of trying to keep her husband from being killed in some Flori-DUH prison awaiting trial for trying to protect himself from one of the special/protected peoples of the land...

Mrs Zimmerman could now wind up doing more jail time than her husband--the case against her looks a lot more solid than the case against him.