ABC News conducted an extensive interview of Shellie Zimmerman this morning.
In a wide-ranging interview conducted by investigative freelance journalist Christi O’Connor, Zimmerman said on the evening Martin died she was staying elsewhere because the couple had got in an argument the night before and that the struggles of the last year and a half have further strained their relationship.
Shellie Zimmerman, who pleaded guilty to perjury Wednesday for lying about the couples finances during her husband’s bond hearing, refused to comment on whether she was pressured to do so.
She said a part of her feels “slightly” like she was hung out to dry when he did not stand up for her when she lied to a judge about how much money that had received in donations from outsiders and that the entire ordeal has hurt their relationship.
Shellie Zimmerman declined to say whether she and her husband remain together, but did say she felt “very much alone” without him in the courtroom to support her when she pleaded guilty Wednesday.
“I can rationalize a lot of reasons for why I was misleading, but the truth is I knew that I was lying,” Shellie Zimmerman said. “I wish a lot of things were different. I can’t tell you how many times I have laid at night saying God, I wish these circumstances had been different.”
Shellie and her husband spent a year and a half in hiding, isolated and in “terror” for their lives as they awaited the trial for the death of the unarmed teenager in 2012.
“I think we have been pretty much like gypsies…We’ve lived in a 20-foot trailer in the woods, scared every night that someone was going to find us and that we’d be out in the woods alone and that it would be horrific,” she said.
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Not as bad as it was advertised to be.
Shellie Zimmerman is a victim of the rabble-rousers’ rampant racism, just as George is.
I agree, and furthermore, the sole purpose of charging her was to make both her and George’s life more miserable. It would have been impossible for her to know the exact amount since large numbers of donations were flowing in.
The point of a politically driven prosecution was to bankrupt and railroad George Zimmerman. It would have worked if not for public awareness and outrage.
No one should be surprised that their marriage is strained. A year and a half of disruption, stress and uncertainty, with no end in sight is bound to create incredible pressures on anyone involved.
Their stress has been in large part due to a well organized PR campaign, a campaign based on a long string of lies. That campaign is the biggest libel-defamation case of our times. It is long past time that those responsible for this are held accountable.
The best recap I have seen of all the sleazy behind the scene scheming is located at: http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=398112&sn=Detail&pid=71619
The murder charge was politically motivated, but the Sanford PD recommended manslaughter and the Sanford PD was conducting an investigation before the likes of Sharpton undermined the investigation. Sharpton brought publicity to the case and tainted the jury pool in Zimmerman’s favor and allowed Zimmerman to raise money for his defense fund. Had Sharpton not got involved Zimmerman would probably have faced manslaughter charges with a public defender.
This is a tragedy, but one positive that might come out of this is that everybody should be very wary of Sharpton’s involvement in a case, because PayPal and the internet will make his involvement counterproductive for the party he is trying to “help”. I only wish worthy people like the Duke lacrosse players could have been the beneficiaries of support from PayPal and internet communities in 2006.
I feel bad for Shellie Zimmerman. I am sorry for both of them and their relationship.
I feel terribly sorry for both of them. They both got a raw deal. SZ should never have agreed to do this interview. I cannot believe that, by now, she hasn’t learned to distrust the MSM completely and totally. Does she not remember how they were both slaughtered in the MSM? The edited tapes, the outright lies, the hammering, all of it?
Whatever problems she and GZ may be having should be kept strictly private. It’s nobody’s damn business and she shouldn’t make it so. It’s very foolish. This will bite her in the butt, rest assured. And don’t they have a lawsuit pending against NBC? Aren’t their other entities who could be sued as well if the Zs so choose? Shut up, Shellie!!
QUIT FEEDING THE BEAST!
I have learned not to draw a conclusion about any interview until the whole, unedited version is posted. I am concerned that Shelly spoke to Christi O’Connor though. Here is her blog
http://zimmermanverdict.net/
and her take on this story
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/man-falls-face-first-concrete-after-sanford-office/nYsJs/
http://www.wftv.com/videos/news/raw-sanford-pd-chief-talks-about-taser-incident/v6jMk/
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-07-19/news/os-sanford-police-taser-man-20130718_1_samuel-fuller-sanford-police-chief-cecil-smith
I continue to pray for the Zimmerman family because I can’t see how anything positive can come from this.
Who says they will ever let you know the truth?
The whole damn Z family needs to STFU and stop thinking they are some kind of media star-ettes.
GZ was forced to act in legal self defense. Period.
GZ – Stop notifying the press that you’re going to tour a gun factory. Go see it if you like, but just go as the only thing you are – a private citizen.
SZ – Stop talking bout your marital relationship on national TV.
RZ – Stop talking about something that happened to your brother.
You all were forced into the national limelight by an unfortunate event. That is over now, IF YOU LET IT BE OVER.
So – STFU and go back to being what you are – just private citizens.
I have some sympathy for them. They were put into a situation that few of us would know how to handle.
While I don’t think I’m as vehement as you about it, I do agree that it’s time for the Zimmermann family to be private citizens again if that’s at all possible. Pick a spot, move there. Decide whether to stay married. Get on with life and family. Stay away from the press; they mean no good.
I agree with you entirely in principle but I also suspect the family may be receiving financial consideration in some cases and they may need the money.
If it’s for da money, I could see that.
They’ve been made the villains in the national narrative that was orchestrated and prosecuted by powerful racists and liars, as I see it.
“Not Guilty” does not declare innocence, and indeed GZ continues to be attacked. They certainly have every right to clear their name from all the slander, though for their safety they might be better off with “duck and cover”.
The brother has been a pretty decent spokesman. Cowering as they become targeted and isolated Alinsky style, is perhaps safer when dealing with Obama/Holder and the racists they inspire. “True confessions” to the liberal media that helped convict them in public opinion will probably not help.
Maybe they need a good publicist to coordinate their story in a way that would protect their image and even earn them money. Big Media and the leftist mob will only continue to use and abuse them.
pjm,
Every report of a Zimmerman “apperance” has come after the fact, and I don’t think that he actually told the press of any of them.
I actually would suggest he deliberately make a few more just to confuse the people stalking him, but I don’t see him absorbed in the lime light.
I also don’t blame him for not showing up in court. The security would have been nowhere near as tight as for his trial.
“Stop notifying the press that you’re going to tour a gun factory. Go see it if you like, but just go as the only thing you are – a private citizen.”
I don’t think Zimmerman notified media, it appears that someone at the facility sold a private picture to TMZ, just another opportunistic shyster like Trayvon’s parents.
This interview seems heavily edited, which makes me wonder why. Anyone have a link to the whole thing?
“I can rationalize a lot of reasons for why I was misleading, but the truth is I knew that I was lying,” Shellie Zimmerman said. “I wish a lot of things were different. I can’t tell you how many times I have laid at night saying God, I wish these circumstances had been different.”
Yep. Like I’ve said all along.
She made the plea to make it go away. Stop preening over your pride in supporting a kangaroo court and a tyrant prosecutor.
Her statement has nothing to do with the plea.
Does it?
She could easily go to the press and proclaim her innocence.
Couldn’t she?
I wonder what the conditions of the plea deal were.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2013/08/shellie-zimmerman-plea-deal/
That should be it, stem to stern.
Note that her public service time can be executed at her church.
Seems pretty straight-forward.
Rags, this is one where I had disagreed with you because I could see that Shellie had answered the question as it was asked.
I will compromise because I think that I am partially right and you are partially right. By this I mean that Shellie answered the question truthfully, that she did not know what was currently in that account. At the same time she was untruthful because she had some idea of what had come in to the account at least 24 hours prior to the bond hearing.
I see it as an omission but not necessarily perjury.
What got my back up was the fact that John Guy edited the transcript and he removed the bit where Shellie said her brother in law had the information. If that had been followed up, then there would not have been any misleading of the court.
It’s easy for people to say go back to being private citizens, but their life is destroyed. No one will hire them. They will live in fear forever. Despite the acquittal he is presumed guilty of murder and despised by probably half the people in the country.
Perhaps she feels like if she publicly distances herself from George and some of his decisions it’s her only chance at some semblance of a life. Who knows, the whole thing is very sad. It sounds like their marriage was in trouble before any of this happened, she’s a good person to stand by him through all of it regardless of where they end up.
“It sounds like their marriage was in trouble before any of this happened”
Because they had a spat and she left for the night? One of my daughters does this, comes home for one night and them goes back the next day periodically. That does not mean they are in trouble.
I’m sure the spinsters are already working out their own fictional narrative about Zimmerman’s frame of mind considering his wife had left for the night in anger.
So she knew “an amount.” And, the judge would have raised George’s bail to a million dollars. Or more.
The money didn’t stop coming in! Plenty of Americans stepped forward to help the Zimmerman’s out with their legal bills.
If this is the point ON A LAWYER’S ADVICE … that she came “clean” … Then she had terrible legal advice.
When the government wants to turn the screws on you … they can.
I think that if she had given them a number that they would have checked and found a larger amount due to ongoing contributions and still charged her.
They are making a big mistake by not supporting each other, through thick and thin.
On the left their bad actors celebrate their big and perverse personalities, and get fawning media attention, endorsements, books and paid speaking engagements just for the boldness of their infamous bad actions. Sometimes there is a cover legend of some virtue (e.g. Bill Clinton’s “leadership”, Jon Corzine’s and Barney Frank’s “financial market acumen”), but often not even that (e.g. Snooki and Paris Hilton). The lowly and poor caught in some bad or contentious turn are made famous and gain speaking fees, grants, etc. (e.g.. Sandra Fluke, Anita Hill, Valerie Plume ). Even the bad actors who do get chased out often do so only after a long long struggle against the ambivalence of the left to their obvious over-the-top bad actions (e.g. Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Bob Filner).
On the right, bad actors are almost always booted quickly, rarely to return to the big stage (eg. Herman Cain, Bob Livingston, Larry Craig), . The lowly and poor who get caught in some bad or contentious turn are crushed, mocked scorned, and most vilely. That is the worst: Linda Tripp, Paula Jones, Joe the Plumber, Bill Dale and many others.
The Zimmermans are not bad actors … they did get caught in a bad turn. Although they were themselves Democrats, liberal, Obama supporters — the PR narrative aligned them with the right. They were crushed. They are just ordinary folks. UNder extreme pressure, without years of grooming for the public eye, without strong networks of public support.
The Left’s flower-bedecked Juggernaut ran them over, crushed them. How wants any part of them? They have been made pariahs — despised ones. It is assumed that they are dangerous to be around, for so much killing hatred in words and actual deeds (against others, at random, as surrogates on the basis of race) has been directed against Zimmerman.
It is as if, so I imagine, they find themselves suddenly caught in the middle of Death Valley, with no water or shade. They RUN to any. That is understandable. “Come to my gun factory!” and George runs to it — there, presumably, is some money in an endorsement.
Shellie saw the harshness of justice set to hang by mob, barely missing George. Should she dare against it? Or was the better and safer choice to submit — submit she did and plead guilty. And she speaks to a distance between her and him, that too, must be weighed as to the white-hot harshness of a willful injustice of the legal system brought to kill her husband
“I am far from him!” she cries as the Judge, as the judge … what will the Judge do now, eh?
That was very poetic.
I wish I knew WTF you just said.
Yes that was deep. Shelly sees the Lara Logan Lynch Mob coming for her. So she says, don’t go after me — I really don’t even like George. Look over there…
What says Lara Logan now? Her Wikipedia bio leaves off at her saying she hoped that the United States would “exact revenge” for the 2012 Benghazi attack.
How is Shellie’s distancing parallel to Lara’s?
Lara Logan was one of the few reporters with the courage to wade out in the crowds in Egypt during the Arab Spring. She was brutally attacked by a mob.
She has become far more conservative since the attack.
David Vitter is still in congress….Mark Sanford just got elected to Congress…Ensign didn’t resign until he was forced….it seems both sides have their problems. Democrats kicked Weiner out of congress…he was pretty much shunned…he’s not doing all the great in his race for mayor either.
A brief comment *before* I look at the video.
From the comments I see here the video is unflattering.
We already know OMara, and GZ are Democrats, my suspicion is that SZ and possibly Kelly SIms are too.
This is Democrats feeding on Democrats because no conservatives would explicitly trust the media.
If I were asked to be interviewed in anything than a random on the street interview, I would at least insist on a copy of the raw footage, so I could release parts they do not. I would insist on maintaining copyright granting them certain rights. I would insist on they applying some form of the rule of completeness to the interview. I would also make sure my lawyers looked over the whole thing.
I think that when you look at history Democrats when they are no longer trusted by Republicans eat their own. The most startling examples are of this are people who change their affiliation ( Lindsay Graham, John McCain you listening ), Like Arlen Spector or Jim Jeffords.
George is a registered Democrat as well….
“If I were asked to be interviewed in anything than a random on the street interview, I would at least insist on a copy of the raw footage,”
I doubt you’d get it. Better to have someone along with a movie cam to record your own. Better yet, two people so they can keep the cameras on both of you.
Well that’s simple. No copy of the raw footage no interview.
You have to be stupid to think that their refusing to give me a copy of the raw footage means that the interview is going to somehow pay off more then it costs me.
Sorry: meant to say: I have to be stupid …
So where was the “bombshell”? From the hype last night, I was expecting her to claim George went out with the express purpose of killing someone that night.
ABC and that GIO asshat guy with breathless “reporting” make me BARF.
Continued Prayers for G and S Z and their respective families. Hopefully that “interview” paid off SZ’s atty
bill.
Wow, I’ve heard heavily edited interviews before, but this one sounds like it was attacked by a chainsaw. I certainly hope she had her own recording of it, because she’s not going to get one from the interviewer. Just from what we heard and what they printed, there was *no* way this was a neutral interview, it’s a hit piece all the way.
Zimmerman appears to have made misleading statements during his Hannity interview,
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2012/07/18/exclusive-george-zimmerman-breaks-silence-hannity#ixzz2dNefz4ua
This appears inconsistent with his wife’s recent statement,
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/zimmermans-wife-staying-married-20104106
Why is Zimmerman using the words “we” and “our” when his wife was not at home? Why does he appear to be speaking generally about the events before the incident? Did they “mentor” kids that day or is that just what they usually did?
The anti Zimmerman crowd is most pathetic with their attempts to pin something on George.
ZLike ignoring the fact that GZ was describing his Sunday routine. Of course it was very subtly hinted at in the statement:
“Sunday after we mentored the kids, we would always go grocery shopping”
Did Zimmerman answer this question or did he mislead Hannity and the viewers?
This really puts into question Zimmerman’s version of events, because he was not going shopping so he AND his wife could do the cooking that night—his wife was NOT at home.
WRT her confirmation of the perjury, I remember “Our Little Terrorist”, Sarah Jane Olson/Kathleen Soliah did a plea bargain, where she plead guilty, and then went in front of the media cameras and proclaimed her innocence. The judge in the case hauled her back in front of the bench and questioned her severely about the contradiction. In fact the judge might have voided the plea bargain and forced it to trial, where she ended up getting time. I can’t remember the specifics exactly, but remember the incident.
SZ might have gotten legal advice to the avoid such a situation.
Yep – Maybe something along the lines of the former NFL player who recently gave his lawyer a familiar butt pat (as ball players are wont to do in celebration) when he found out the light ruling of the judge. Unfortunately they were still before the judge. The judge immediately rescinded her decision and put him behind bars to cool his heels a few days until she allowed him to appear again and apologize to the court.