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Shellie Zimmerman
The estranged wife of George Zimmerman has told police he threatened her with a gun.
Shellie Zimmerman also said George Zimmerman had punched her father and smashed her iPad.
George Zimmerman blamed his spouse for the altercation and denied any wrongdoing.
He was briefly taken into custody and questioned but no charges have been laid against him.
In July, George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder in the February 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Shellie Zimmerman told police that George Zimmerman had punched her father and smashed her iPad
George Zimmerman shot dead Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed and walking at night toward his father’s house. He told investigators the boy had attacked him.
On Monday, police responded to a call from the Zimmermans’ central Florida home after Shellie Zimmerman told an emergency official her husband was sitting in his car with his hand on a gun.
Shellie Zimmerman also told authorities she was afraid of her 29-year-old husband after he allegedly punched her father in the nose and grabbed an iPad out of her hand and smashed it.
Hours later, she changed her story and said she had never seen a firearm, police said.
Both Shellie Zimmerman and her father declined to press charges.
Shellie Zimmerman, 26, filed for divorce on September 5, a week after she was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service for perjury in connection with George Zimmerman’s murder trial.
Shellie Zimmerman had admitted lying about assets the couple shared during a June 2012 bail hearing.
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Shellie Zimmerman has filed for divorce just days after saying how her husband’s murder trial put a strain on their marriage.
George Zimmerman’s wife filed to legally end her marriage two days after breaking her silence during a television interview where she explained that her self-esteem had been “beaten down” by her husband.
Shellie Zimmerman’s lawyer, Kelly Sims, confirmed the split to The Orlando Sentinel on Thursday and said that while the formal filing is imminent, the couple separated on August 13- exactly one month after he was acquitted of Trayvon Martin’s murder.
George Zimmerman’s wife, who told the court that she was two months shy of earning her registered nurse license before dropping out of school, has no income and six-figure debts.
Shellie Zimmerman has filed for divorce just days after saying how her husband’s murder trial put a strain on their marriage
According to the paper, Shellie Zimmerman has $103,756 in debt due to school and car loans as well as credit card bills.
She wants to have a mediator divide up the couple’s assets equitably but she hopes to gain custody of their two dogs- a Rottweiller named Oso and a mixed breed named Leroy.
Shellie Zimmerman’s $12,729 in assets is attributed largely to her Honda Accord.
“After much soul searching and recent disappointments, Shellie feels compelled to officially end her six-year marriage to George Michael Zimmerman,” Kelly Sims said.
“The marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken,” the filing wrote.
Shellie Zimmerman’s brother-in-law, Robert, who frequently made press appearances during the trial, said that Shellie has not yet filed the divorce papers but her legal team confirmed to him that they will be processed soon.
“According to Shellie’s atty Kelly Sims – Shellie is preparing to file 4 divorce. Docs have not yet been filed in Seminole Cty. Pray 4 them,” Robert Zimmerman wrote on Twitter.
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George Zimmerman’s wife Shellie says their marriage is on the verge of ending and that she is going to have to “think about” whether she will stay with him, as it is revealed he “beat down” her self-esteem.
Shellie Zimmerman, 26, stood by her husband throughout his lengthy murder trial and even admitted to lying to a judge about the couple’s finances – a decision that led to her arrest. On Wednesday, she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation and community service.
She also revealed that the couple hid out in a 20-foot trailer in the woods and lived in fear every night that one of the thousands of people who had threatened George Zimmerman’s life would find them and kill them.
Shellie Zimmerman refused to say whether she and George are still together – but that doesn’t change her opinion on whether he murdered Trayvon Martin. She said she always believed he killed the unarmed teen in self-defense.
Investigative journalist Christi O’Connor spoke with Shellie Zimmerman in her first public interview since her husband’s acquittal on July 14. The interview aired this morning on Good Morning America.
“I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve laid awake at night just thinking I wish to God these circumstances were different,” she said.
Christi O’Connor told ABC News that George Zimmerman has “beaten down” his wife’s self-image.
“When I asked her why she was doing this, Shellie said, <<I want to start my life back>>,” Christi O’Connor said.
“George Zimmerman has beaten down her self-esteem. She has a moment in the spotlight. She wants everyone to know that she changed her life.”
George Zimmerman’s wife Shellie says their marriage is on the verge of ending
When asked whether she was still together with her husband, she refused to answer.
Later, she said wanted to have children. When the interviewer asked her: “With George?” she responded: “That’s something I’m going to have to think about.”
Shellie Zimmerman stood by her husband throughout lengthy criminal that sent them both into hiding when George became a symbol of racial tension. She appeared at every court hearing for him.
And even now, she stands by his actions that night, when the neighborhood watch volunteer confronted a teenager he thought looked suspicious who was walking through his neighborhood.
When asked if she thought George Zimmerman had targeted Trayvon Martin and murdered him in cold blood, she he’s “not capable” that kind of behavior.
“That’s not his way,” she said.
Despite her presence at his court hearings, he was not in court Wednesday when she admitted to perjury when she lied about how much money the couple had raised on a website established for George Zimmerman’s legal defense.
“By lying under oath, I let my God down, I let your Honor and the court down, I let my family and friends down, and, most of all, I let myself down,” she wrote in an apology letter.
Shellie Zimmerman received 100 hours of community service and a year of probation. She said she plans to do the community service at a Christian ministry.
When asked if she wished her husband had been in court with her, she responded: “I always want my husband’s support.”
Tens of thousands protested when he not arrested Trayvon Martin’s death in February 2012.
Hundreds of other people issued death threats against George and Shellie Zimmerman and their families.
The couple were forced to flee their home in a gated community in Sanford, Florida, and go into hiding.
“We have been pretty much Gypsies for they past year and half,” she said.
“We lived in a 20-foot trailer in the woods, scared every night that someone would find us and it would be horrific.”
She also revealed that the couple’s marital problem did not come as a result of her husband’s killing of Trayvon Martin, nor even from the hiding out. They began even before George Zimmerman became a household name.
Shellie Zimmerman revealed that the night George shot Trayvon Martin, she was staying at after her father’s house because she and her husband had had a fight.
She also expressed sadness for Trayvon Martin’s parents, who have been vocal in demanding George Zimmerman be sent to prison.
“I’m so deeply sorry for the loss. I can’t even begin to understand the grief that a parent experiences when they lose a child,” Shellie Zimmerman said.
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Shellie Zimmerman, wife of Trayvon Martin’s shooter George Zimmerman, was charged with perjury Tuesday, accused of lying when she told a judge that the couple had limited funds during a hearing that resulted in her husband being released on $150,000 bond.
Shellie Zimmerman, 25, was released on $1,000 bond on the third-degree felony that is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
George Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the teen’s slaying and had been out on bond after the April 20 hearing. However, Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester on June 1 revoked the bond and ordered George Zimmerman returned to the Seminole County Jail. In a strongly worded ruling, Lester said the Zimmermans lied about how much money they had.
George Zimmerman’s attorney Mark O’Mara has said the couple was confused and fearful when they misled court officials about how much money they had. A call and email to him on Tuesday weren’t immediately returned.
Records show Shellie Zimmerman in the days before the hearing transferred $74,000 in eight smaller amounts ranging from $7,500 to $9,990, from her husband’s credit union account to hers, according to an arrest affidavit. It also shows that $47,000 was transferred from George Zimmerman’s account to his sister’s in the days before the bond hearing.
Four days after he was released on bond, Shellie Zimmerman transferred more than $85,500 from her account into her husband’s account, the affidavit said. The affidavit also said that jail call records show that George Zimmerman instructed her to “pay off all the bills,” including an American Express and Sam’s Club card.
Shellie Zimmerman, wife of Trayvon Martin's shooter George Zimmerman, was charged with perjury Tuesday
A state attorney investigator met with credit union officials and learned that she had control of transfers to and from her husband’s account.
Jeffrey Neiman, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said cash transactions in excess of $10,000 usually trigger a reporting requirement by the bank to multiple government agencies – including the IRS.
“If Mrs. Zimmerman intentionally structured the financial transactions in a manner to keep the offense under $10,000, not only may she have committed perjury in the state case, but she also may have run afoul of several federal statutes and could face serious federal criminal charges,” Jeffrey Neiman wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, has maintained since the February 26 killing that he shot Trayvon Martin in self-defense because the unarmed 17-year-old was beating him up after confronting Zimmerman about following him in a gated community outside Orlando.
George Zimmerman was arrested 44 days later and at the bond hearing, he took the stand and apologized to Trayvon Martin’s parents.
At the hearing, Shellie Zimmerman testified that the couple, who married in 2007, had limited funds for bail because she was a full-time student and her husband wasn’t working. Prosecutors say they actually had then already raised $135,000 in donations from a website George Zimmerman created. They suggested more had been raised since then.
Shellie Zimmerman was asked about the website at the hearing, but she said she didn’t know how much money had been raised. Judge Kenneth Lester set the $150,000 bail and George Zimmerman was freed a few days later after posting $15,000 in cash, which is typical.
In bringing a motion to have George Zimmerman’s bond revoked lead prosecutor Bernie De la Rionda complained: “This court was led to believe they didn’t have a single penny. It was misleading and I don’t know what words to use other than it was a blatant lie.”
The judge agreed and ordered George Zimmerman returned to jail where he has been since turning himself in on June 3. He didn’t perjure himself, but Kenneth Lester said he knew his wife was lying.
“Does your client get to sit there like a potted plant and lead the court down the primrose path? That’s the issue,” Kennethh Lester said in revoking George Zimmerman’s bond.
“He can’t sit back and obtain the benefit of a lower bond based upon those material falsehoods.”
He has another bond hearing set for June 29.
Bernie De la Rionda presented to the judge during the revocation hearing a partial transcript of telephone conversations George Zimmerman had with his wife from jail, days before the original bond hearing.
George Zimmerman and his wife discussed the amount of money raised from the website, and he spoke in code to tell his wife how to make fund transfers, according to the transcript. The code referred to amounts of “$15” in place of “$150,000.”
In the arrest affidavit, they also spoke about small amounts when really, prosecutors said, they were referring in code to thousands of dollars that Shellie Zimmerman withdrew from her account to pay the bail bondsman.
