Since he was found not guilty of second degree murder in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman hasn’t been able to keep himself out of the news for very long. Now Zimmerman (no relation) seems to have entered a new, more litigious phase of his life.
In December he filed a $100 million lawsuit against Trayvon Martin’s parents and their attorney claiming defamation over a witness who he alleges they knew gave false testimony during his trial in an effort to incriminate him.
Zimmerman’s lawsuit…said a trial witness pretended to be the last person to talk to Martin by phone before he was killed when the witness was actually the half-sister of the caller.
According to the lawsuit, Brittany Diamond Eugene didn’t want to testify that she had been talking to Martin before he was killed. So her half-sister, Rachel Jeantel, pretended that she was talking to the teen before he was fatally shot. Jeantel ended up testifying at Zimmerman’s 2013 trial in Sanford, Florida.
That suit is still pending.
February 5 of this year would have been Martin’s 25th birthday. Two Democrat presidential candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, took the opportunity to mark the occasion while implying that the Martin shooting was the result of racism.
My heart goes out to @SybrinaFulton and Trayvon’s family and friends. He should still be with us today.
We need to end gun violence and racism. And we need to build a world where all of our children—especially young Black boys—can grow up safe and free. https://t.co/9lXXlRnvzL
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 6, 2020
Trayvon Martin would have been 25 today.
How many 25th birthdays have been stolen from us by white supremacy, gun violence, prejudice, and fear?#BlackLivesMatter
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) February 5, 2020
Now Zimmerman has filed a $265 million defamation suit against the two politicians. According to NBC News . . .
The lawsuit claims the candidates “defamed Zimmerman for political gain in misguided and malicious attempts to bolster their standings amongst African-American voters, all at Zimmerman’s expense.”
They did so in “separate postings on their Twitter accounts” on Feb. 5 that suggested that Zimmerman killed Martin as a result of “racism” or “fear” because of the teen’s skin color, the suit alleges.
We’ll be watching.