George Zimmerman faces a harassing communications investigation after he Tweeted nude photos of his ex-girlfriend, police said Friday.
Zimmerman, 32, who fatally shot black teen Trayvon Martin in 2012 and later got acquitted,
was suspended from Twitter Thursday after the posts listing a phone number and email address for a woman he called “Heather.” He claimed the topless woman in the pictures had stolen from him and cheated on him with “a dirty Muslim.”
The woman’s full name is being withheld by the Daily News. She filed a complaint in the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office the day after the Tweets, said Kim Cannady, a spokeswoman for the Orlando-area sheriff’s office. Zimmerman has been arrested several times on assault charges involving his girlfriends.
Deputies are looking into a potential harassing communications charge because Zimmerman’s Tweets on his defunct “@TherealGeorgeZ” account don’t amount to a criminal violation of the state’s new revenge porn statute, Cannady said.
A legal analyst
for WFTV said that the Tweets don’t fit the state’s definition of nudity under the revenge porn law.
“As long as you don’t post a picture that is total nudity, you may avoid criminal prosecution,” said Bill Sheaffer. “What may have saved the person who posted this is that it was cropped at or about the breast level.”
Zimmerman, no stranger to odd and inflammatory tweets, posted a picture of an unknown woman with her phone number, claiming she cheated on him with a "dirty Muslim".
The victim first approached deputies about Zimmerman after she broke up with him in September and he started sending the woman and her 10-year-old son a barrage of texts, according to a report from the sheriff’s office. Zimmerman was testifying court that month against a man accused of shooting at him in a road-rage dispute.
The woman had dumped Zimmerman after they dated for a few months. Zimmerman contacted her son days later to tell him his biological father doesn’t love him and texted several “inappropriate comments” at his mom, deputies said.
The investigator had her text Zimmerman to tell him not to message her or the boy anymore, and Zimmerman responded, “or what,” according to the report.
Deputies didn’t find Zimmerman’s texts threatening at the time, but they advised the woman to change her phone number and call the police if he showed up at her home. They also told her to consider filing for an order of protection against him.
A number listed as Zimmerman’s cell phone number in the report led to an out-of-service signal Friday night.
A different ex-girlfriend
recanted her story alleging he threw a wine bottle at her in January. Another girlfriend accused him of
pointing a gun at her during an argument in November 2013, and his estranged wife said
he threatened to shoot her months earlier.
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