ABy prearrangement, Zimmerman, who had been living in an undisclosed location since posting bond on April 23, met personnel from the Seminole County Sheriff’s office in a parking lot off a nearby interstate highway where he was handcuffed and transferred to an unmarked white police van.
At 1:43 p.m. on Sunday, approximately 45 minutes before the court-imposed deadline, Zimmerman was led out of the van and escorted inside the correctional facility where he was booked and placed in a private cell. Wearing a checkered button-down shirt and jeans, Zimmerman did not answer questions shouted to him by waiting reporters.
Mark O’Mara, the attorney for Zimmerman, is expected to file a motion for a new bond hearing in two or three weeks. At that time, Judge Lester is expected to grant the motion for a hearing, but it is unknown whether he will raise Zimmerman’s bond and order him held without bond until his expected trial.
The prosecutors provided financial records and transcripts of taped telephone conversations between Zimmerman and his wife, Shelly.
“During some of the calls to his wife, Shelly Zimmerman, Defendant discussed the amount of money sent to PayPal through the website, which was deposited into Defendant’s Credit Union account, and at defendant’s direction transferred into his wife’s Credit Union account,” the motion to revoke Zimmerman’s bond recounted.
It also noted, “The Credit Union statements show on 4/19/2012, the day before the Bond Hearing, Defendant and his wife had access to over $135,000.00. Defendant has intentionally deceived the Court with the assistance of his wife, Shelly Zimmerman. During the jail phone calls both of them spoke in code to hide what they were doing. And, Defendant fully controlled and participated in the transfer of money from the PayPal accounts to Defendant and his wife’s Credit Union accounts. This occurred prior to the time Defendant was arguing to the Court that he was indigent and his wife had no money.”
Part of those funds from the website, it was later learned, was used to post Zimmerman’s bond.
The motion to revoke Zimmerman’s bond also disclosed that contrary to representation of Zimmerman’s lawyer, he had a second passport that he could have used to flee the United States.
“At the beginning of the Bond Hearing on 4/20/2012, Defense Counsel informed the Court that Defendant was surrendering his United States passport and tendered it to the Court, noting that the passport ‘expired in May 2012.’ Defense counsel stated ‘this is my client’s current passport and only passport that he has,’” the prosecution motion stated.
However, Zimmerman had a second passport that he did not disclose, which was valid until 2014. Zimmerman’s lawyer claims that his client thought he had lost his original passport and had applied for a replacement. Zimmerman supposedly found the original passport after he had received the second one.