Zimmerman's lawyer raises media, race, Constitution in cash plea

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In the hours after a judge raised George Zimmerman’s bond to $1 million, his attorney, Mark O’Mara, took to the web to ask supporters for fresh donations. In his plea, O’Mara appeals to those who have gravitated to the Zimmerman side over issues of race, the media, and the U.S. Constitution.

According to a post on the GZLegalCase website, Zimmerman’s legal team has begun to spend the approximately $211,000 in a legal defense fund set up with funds Zimmerman originally raised via his own website, which were later transferred to a trust account. It was those funds — and Zimmerman and his wife’s lies to the court about them — that got Zimmerman’s earlier $150,000 bond revoked in June. And the judge in the case issued a harshly worded, lengthy order on Thursday demanding the much higher bond. Judge Kenneth Lester claimed that Zimmerman attempted to manipulate the system when he and his wife used rudimentary code to try and hide the money he had raised from supporters, even from O’Mara. And the judge worried that the more than $150,000 the Zimmermans had access to at the time of his April 20 bond hearing, combined with a second passport he also concealed from the court, made him a flight risk.

theGrio: Zimmerman’s bond set at $1 million

But O’Mara, who unsuccessfully argued that Zimmerman was nothing more than a scared young man who felt burned by the system, says his client has enough money to pay the 10 percent required to make bond, but not as much money as people might think.

“In order to get out of jail, Mr. Zimmerman will have to pay a bail bond company $100,000 (10% of the bond amount) and have collateral worth $1,000,000,” the post begins.”George Zimmerman and his family do not have anywhere near $1,000,000 for collateral so even if we pay the $100,000 fee, the bail bond company will have to agree to work with us on how the collateral would be posted. We are encouraged we can work this out. We paid $15,000 initially for the first bail fee so an additional fee of $85,000 would have to be paid to post this new bond assuming we can work out the collateral issue.”

Of the $211,000 or so in Zimmerman’s legal defense fund, O’Mara says some $40,000 are payable for defense expenses. And he says paying the bond down payment, plus anticipated fees for expert witnesses, depositions, private security and living expenses for the Zimmermans could quickly “wipe out the existing balance.”

“While it may seem that there is a lot of money in in the fund, this will be a very expensive case to defend and it is clear that the fight will be long and hard,” the posting reads.