George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing unarmed 17-year old Trayvon Martin in 2012, is now suing the young black teen’s family and their attorney for $100 million.
Zimmerman’s attorney, Larry Klayman, a former federal prosecutor, said the lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Polk County.
Lawyers representing Zimmerman are alleging that the prosecution’s key witness in his 2013 murder trial, Rachel Jeantel, was an “imposter and fake witness.”
Sun Sentinel reports:
The complaint alleges that in March 2012, the Sanford Police Department closed the case as self-defense. But a week later, the Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump produced a recorded audio tape of “Diamond Eugene” who was Martin’s 16-year-old girlfriend who had been on the phone with Martin just before the altercation with Zimmerman, it says.
The complaint alleges two weeks later, 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel told prosecutors she was Diamond Eugene “and provided false statements to incriminate Zimmerman based on coaching from others.”
Based on Martin’s cellphone records, the lawyers argue Rachel Jeantel was not Martin’s girlfriend, was not on the phone with him before the altercation, and that “she lied repeatedly to cause Zimmerman’s arrest and to try to send him to prison for life.”
Zimmerman’s attorney stated, “It was a complete travesty of justice which destroyed my client’s life,” Klayman added “People are destroyed and smeared and they have to start fighting back.”
Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, claimed he shot and killed Martin in self-defense — although audio recording proves that Zimmerman was following Martin around the neighborhood. Dispatch even advised that Zimmerman stop following the young man.
Martin lost his life in a gated Miami Gardens community in Sanford, Florida where his father lived — a place where he should have felt safe.
Even after all of those facts were played out in court, Zimmerman was still acquitted of murdering a young man — and the judgement sparked a huge outcry and national debates about social justice, which gave Trayvon’s family a voice to speak on the matter.
Along with suing Martin’s family, Zimmerman is also suing civil rights attorney Crump and HarperCollins Publishers, accusing them of defaming him in Crump’s book published in October called “Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People,” “with actual malice knowing the untruth or at a minimum a reckless disregard for the truth,” according to the lawsuit.
So what’s the point of this lawsuit? Is it to pour salt into Trayvon Martin’s family’s wounds or is it to silence them? Or could it just be that George Zimmerman can’t get a job and this is the only way he believes he can get money.
What do y’all think? Leave us a comment below.
