Judge orders Zimmerman back to jail

George Zimmerman was ordered back to jail on Friday for misleading the court about his access to an Internet fundraising account.

Seminole County Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Lester revoked the bail for Zimmerman — who is facing a second-degree murder charge in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin of Miami Gardens — after finding that Zimmerman and his wife concealed their access to a $200,000 account during a bond hearing in April.

Zimmerman, who was not present at Friday’s hearing, now must surrender to Seminole County sheriff’s deputies by Sunday afternoon.

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, is accused of chasing down Trayvon in his gated community in Sanford and then shooting him after a scuffle on Feb. 26. Prosecutors argue that Zimmerman went after Trayvon, who was walking to his father’s apartment, because he wrongly assumed the teen was about to commit a crime; Zimmerman, however, told police he acted in self-defense, after Trayvon attacked him and slammed his head on the sidewalk.

Zimmerman, 28, was charged with second-degree murder in April by a special prosecutor after weeks of public pressure. In the days before his arrest, a website was set up in Zimmerman’s name proclaiming his innocence and soliciting donations for his defense. The PayPal account from the website collected $204,000.

Prosecutors said they have recordings of phone conversations between Zimmerman and his wife while Zimmerman was in jail in which the couple discussed moving money from the PayPal account to the accounts of Zimmerman and his wife, Shellie.

During a later bail hearing, Shellie Zimmerman said she was unaware of any additional money available for her husband’s bail. When prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda asked how much money was in the PayPal account, Shellie said she didn’t know.

In fact, prosecutors said, the couple had access to as much as $135,000 at the time. Based in part on the testimony that Zimmerman was indigent, the judge agreed to release Zimmerman on $150,000 bail.

“The defendant’s wife lied to this court,” de la Rionda said at Friday’s hearing. Zimmerman “just sat there as his wife lied under oath.”

Judge Lester reached the same conclusion, revoking Zimmerman’s bond on the grounds that he was not truthful during the bond hearing. The judge also said he was surprised that prosecutors had not also brought charges against Zimmerman’s wife.

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Tags: chase, jail, martin, trayvon, www.airiaconsulting.com, www.theglenntobynetwork.net, zimmerman

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