George Zimmerman Is Suing Trayvon Martin’s Family and Others for $100 Million
That George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was never in dispute. He admitted during his trial that he killed Martin as the teen was walking home from a convenience store in 2012, claiming he was acting in self-defense after forcing a confrontation with Martin. The defense worked: In 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges.
Since being acquitted, he's made other headlines. In 2016, Zimmerman sold the gun he used to kill Martin for $250,000 on a gun auction site. The year prior, he was arrested for aggravated assault and domestic violence with a weapon. Most recently, he was charged in 2018 with stalking an investigator working on a separate Trayvon Martin documentary. The man alleged that Zimmerman sent him 38 text messages, called him 21 times, and left seven voice mails in less than three hours.
Now, Zimmerman is suing Martin's family, their lawyers, a publisher, witnesses in the case, some members of the prosecution, and even the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for defamation and "malicious prosecution," demanding a total of $100 million. He claims that the family conspired with law enforcement to defame him during the trial. Zimmerman is represented by Larry Klayman, who helped found the right-wing legal activist group Judicial Watch before leaving the organization in 2003.
The lead defendant is Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton. Since her son's killing, Fulton has become a prominent activist, and she's now running for commissioner of Miami-Dade County, a majority African-American and Latino district. In a statement, her current lawyers called the suit a "shameless attempt to profit off the lives and grief of others."
Also named in the suit is the family's lawyer from the 2013 trial, Ben Crump. Since the trial, Crump has written a book titled Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, which was published by Harper Collins in October 2019. As a result, Harper Collins is also listed as a defendant. In a statement, Crump wrote that Zimmerman's claim "defies all logic." He added: "The plaintiff continues to display a callous disregard for everyone but himself, revictimizing individuals whose lives were shattered by his own misguided actions. He would have us believe that he is the innocent victim of a deep conspiracy, despite the complete lack of any credible evidence to support his outlandish claims."
Zimmerman's lawsuit is reportedly based on information from an upcoming documentary, The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America, which alleges to tell the story of the shooting and trial from Zimmerman's point of view. The film was set to screen in tandem with the lawsuit announcement, opening at a private event at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on Thursday afternoon. The cinema canceled the event on Wednesday after learning the details of the film. Klayman claimed that Coral Gables mayor Raúl Valdés-Fauli had a role in getting the private event canceled, and told the Miami-Herald that "his sorry derriere will be sued if he doesn’t reverse this."
While the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is reportedly named in Zimmerman's suit, a spokesperson told The Washington Post on Wednesday that it had not yet been served.
News
Maybe you heard about the Tamir Rice case and wondered: How does a 12-year-old boy with a toy gun on a playground get shot to death on-camera by the police without anyone getting charged? Put another way: How does a small group of government officials make this case disappear without a trial? Here’s how.
Originally Appeared on GQ
