George Zimmerman: wine bottle incident
Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, was arrested and has been charged with aggravated assault with a weapon. He is alleged to have thrown a bottle of wine at a woman in his home. The bottle did not hit her.
Bail was set a $5,000 by a Seminole County judge.
The throwing of the wine bottle did not happen Friday night, the night he was arrested at about 10 p.m., but a few days earlier. It was not the woman, Zimmerman’s lawyer, Don West told media, who made the complaint, though West said he did not know who made it.
“No injuries, no contact, nothing that I’m aware of that led up to it,” he said. “It’s just one of those things that somehow brought us here.” Zimmerman spent Friday night in the John E Polk correctional facility and made bail the following day after his court appearance.
Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin
Zimmerman was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community in Sanford, Florida in 2012 when he encountered Martin and the two fought. Zimmerman claimed Martin began the fight and that Martin was winning, which a witness corroborated, and was on top of him.
Zimmerman was licensed to carry a weapon and he says Martin found the gun on him and was trying to get it. Zimmerman said he won control of the gun and shot Martin once in the chest. Martin died at the scene.
He was eventually charged with second-degree murder and acquitted after a trial that received media attention in the U.S. and in other countries. Since his acquittal Zimmerman has had a number of run-ins with the law.
George Zimmerman: string of arrests
In 2013 his ex-wife said he punched her father and pulled out a gun. Police were called, a gun was never found and his ex-wife said she may have been mistaken and never actually saw a gun. No charges were filed.
Also in 2013, a girlfriend said he pointed a shotgun at her and claims he then began breaking her belongings. He denied it and barricaded himself in the home when police came. He was charged but those charges, too, were dropped, and the girlfriend said she was wrong about some of her accusations. She asked that the restraining order she had against him be dropped. It was.
Among other incidents, there was an incidence of road rage in 2014 when he chased another motorists; there were no charges in that incident, either. Prior to the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman’s only run-in with the law was a 2005 encounter when, at 21, he shoved an undercover alcohol-control agent.
In this latest incident, the court ordered Zimmerman to stay out of Volusia County, Fla., the area where the woman lives that he is alleged to have thrown the wine bottle at. He has a court appearance on Feb. 17.
