Zimmerman charged with misdemeanor stalking
George Zimmerman has been charged with stalking a private investigator who contacted him about a documentary series on Trayvon Martin produced by the rapper Jay Z, court records show.
Zimmerman was charged with misdemeanor stalking through a summons delivered to him on Thursday, said Todd Brown, spokesman for the Brevard and Seminole County judicial circuit.
The private investigator told Seminole County deputies that he had contacted Zimmerman in September on behalf of the series’ executive producer, Michael Gasparro, and gave Zimmerman his information.
Zimmerman soon called Gasparro and talked about the documentary series, which will be about 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s life and his 2012 death, for which Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder.
The private investigator told deputies he did not hear from Zimmerman again until December. Gasparro called him and said Zimmerman was “extremely agitated” and sending Gasparro threatening messages, deputies wrote in the request for a warrant.
“[The private investigator] is a [expletive] WHO BOTHERED MY UNCLE IN HIS HOME. Local OR former law officer He’s well on his way to the inside of a gator as well. 10-4?” Zimmerman wrote to Gasparro, using the police code to ask if he understood or acknowledged the message.
Between Dec. 16, 2017, and Christmas Day, the private investigator told deputies he got 55 phone calls, 67 text messages, 36 voicemails and 27 emails from Zimmerman, records show.
When the investigator asked him to stop, Zimmerman texted “NO!” and then “Pursue charges,” records show.
This is not the first time Zimmerman reportedly threatened to feed someone involved in the documentary series’ production to an alligator: In December he made the same threat about Jay Z himself.
“What I said is I would beat him as if I was Solange, and he would find himself coming out of the south side of a gator if he comes to Florida and bothers my family,” Zimmerman told the Orlando Sentinel in December. Solange is the sister of Jay Z’s wife, Beyonce. Solange was captured on an elevator surveillance camera hitting Jay Z after the Met Gala in 2014.
Zimmerman is scheduled for an arraignment 9 a.m. May 30 in the Seminole County Courthouse.
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