George Zimmerman’s New Claim: Key Witness Was Fake, Imposter

Welcome to the end of 2019; we now have a case from “Obama’s era of 2012” that launched Black Lives Matter coming back into the news.  Most of us can remember how Zimmerman was acquitted in the 2012 fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. This case was a “ground-zero” launch into a severe racism divide and divisive media narratives that fueled American politics and media culture for years.

Seven years later, reflecting on the revisiting of this case brings the potential for changed perspectives in today’s post-Jussie-Smollett-Hoax era in 2019. But reviewing the headlines and twitter feeds talking about this story so far, makes it instantly evident that the nation is just as equally divided on this case now, as it was in 2012.

Because this is a developing story it calls for a collection of both sides of the story; I’ve shared here a number of links and observations that highlight just that – both sides.

On Wednesday, George Zimmerman filed a $100 million lawsuit against Trayvon Martin’s family and others. He claims that their witnesses against him during the trial were “imposters and fake.” Zimmerman’s complaint alleges that Brittany Diamond Eugene (Trayvon’s real girlfriend) did not want to bear false witness, so they put her half-sister, Rachel Jeantel onto the witness stand. The lawsuit also claims that Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, prosecutors, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement knew about the “imposter witness,” and it was never questioned. Until now.

George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, is now suing the slain teen's family for $100 million pic.twitter.com/sUPZ9QTocp

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) December 5, 2019

George Zimmerman has filed a $100 million lawsuit against Trayvon Martin's family, prosecutors and others, alleging he was the victim of a conspiracy and malicious prosecution.

Martin's family calls it an "unfounded and reckless lawsuit."https://t.co/yVy55wMTi3

— NPR (@NPR) December 4, 2019

Coverage from ABC News:

Wow, this is wild. Indeed.

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1202449321897144321?s=20

The Trayvon Martin case was built on a fraud, with a key witness being swapped out with an imposter when the real witness wouldn’t testify, George Zimmerman said in a lawsuit Wednesday.

The lawsuit says Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend, a vivacious 16-year-old named Brittany Diamond Eugene, when Zimmerman killed him on Feb. 26, 2012. At trial, prosecutors produced the plump, slow-spoken 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel as the girl who had crucial insight into his final moments by being on the phone with him.

The lawsuit says Eugene refused to provide the version of events used to build a narrative of racism at trial, so Jeantel, who reads at a fourth-grade level, was pressured into pretending to be “Diamond.”

The lawsuit seeks $100 million and names both young women as defendants, plus Martin’s parents, who it says were well aware of the swap.

Zimmerman’s lawyer filed the lawsuit in state court in Florida and it also targets the state of Florida and its prosecutors, who allegedly initially falsely told the defense that Martin’s cellphone was too damaged to extract its data, when it actually contained evidence damaging to their case. That includes not only evidence of the witness swap, but also texts showing Martin previously discussing gun sales and bragging of beating up a “snitch” and saying, “He aint bleed nuff 4 me, only his nosez.” Prosecutors also ran out the clock by repeatedly ignoring the defense’s entitlement to exculpatory evidence, the suit says.

It additionally names Benjamin Crump, the civil attorney for Martin’s parents, who rode the case to fame and wrote a book about “genocide” of “colored people” despite allegedly playing a key role in a hoax.

The suit says:

“Each and every one of them … instituted, ordered, commanded, conspired, and covered up the illegal substitution of Defendant Eugene, a legitimate phone witness to the days, hours and minutes before the death of Trayvon Martin with Defendant Jeantel, an imposter and fake witness, who told a made to order false storyline to prosecutors in order to cause Zimmerman to be arrested, tried, and convicted for second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in a case that had already been investigated and closed by the Sanford, Florida police department, and after they had already exonerated Zimmerman, having concluded Zimmerman had acted in self-defense with no probable cause for arrest based on eye-witness testimony, physical evidence, and 911 audio recordings.”

The Orlando Weekly provides an in-depth local news perspective on the case that presents both the 2012 perspective, as well as some new information being used in Zimmerman’s case, now in 2019.

So why now? Only in recent months did Zimmerman learn about this through the publication of Joel Gilbert’s book and film both entitled The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America. Here’s the book’s prologue and a trailer of the documentary film:

"I am the last person who ever expected to be accused of being a bigot," Zimmerman said. "I am Hispanic. My mother is from Peru. I speak fluent Spanish. I was an Obama supporter and a social activist.https://t.co/rSLnEmL4mH

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 5, 2019

Regardless of where we all stand on this issue, it will be interesting to watch this case play out. I’m not sure what to expect, but I do trust that the facts and truth will come out. Truth has a way of doing that.

There will be much more to come surrounding this case. Stay tuned for more.