While the trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin still looms over his head, George Zimmerman is being accused of child molestation. A woman identified only as “witness 9” told authorities that the self-appointed neighborhood watchman inappropriately touched her for a decade starting when she was just 6-years-old.
The allegations were made public today by Special Prosecutor Angela Corey, who released another round of evidence pertaining to Zimmerman’s trial. In witness 9’s testimony, the unidentified woman alleged that Zimmerman would molest her during her childhood while they watched movies.
“We would all lay in front of the TV” to watch movies,” she said to authorities in a statement, “and he would reach under the blankets and try to do things. … I would try to push him off, but he was bigger and stronger and older,” she said.
Witness 9 also contends that at least once, when she was 12, Zimmerman forced her to touch him. The woman alleges that the abuse went on from the time she was 6 till she was 16. When asked why she suddenly decided to come forward with her claims, authorities report that witness 9 said she was “no longer scared of him.” Witness 9 is said to be a woman who stayed with the Zimmerman family in Virginia with her sister while her parents moved to another state.
In addition to the bombshell molestation allegations, witness 9 told police that she knows for a fact that George Zimmerman and his family “don’t like black people.” More specifically, the Zimmermans “don’t like black people if they don’t act like white people. They like black people if they act white,” said witness 9. When asked if she had seen Zimmerman act with hostility toward a black person however, witness 9 told authorities “no.”
Zimmerman’s defense attorney Mark O’Mara had previously tried to block the release of witness 9’s statements saying that they were “incendiary.” Special prosecutor Angela Corey released them anyway. In addition to witness 9 testimony, more jailhouse calls between Zimmerman and his wife, Shellie, were released including one of him crying the day after his arrest. As previously reported, George Zimmerman is currently out on $1 million bail while he awaits the start of his trial. –danielle canada
