SANFORD  FLORIDA —   Attorneys for George Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie Zimmerman, have deferred a hearing that was supposed to take place Wednesday. Instead, a status conference on her upcoming trial will be held next week.
Shellie Zimmerman is facing perjury charges for lying in court about how much money the couple had during a bond hearing for her husband. Her perjury case was put on hold until after her husband’s murder trial.  [… because it is ridiculous /SD]
Those expected to testify at her upcoming trial include George’s sister, a court reporter and investigators from the state attorney’s office.  (link)

Who is this man?

Here’s The Backstory  –  You have probably never heard of him, and if you follow the mainstream lame stream media reporting of the George Zimmerman case you definitely never had.
Michael S Herring is part of the Orlando Legal machine who cares less about seeking justice, and more about self-interest along with protecting “the system”.  Sound familiar ?
Mr. Herring “was” the former, as in “first”, attorney for Shellie Zimmerman.   Yeah, that’s right, the “former” attorney for Shellie Zimmerman.  The representative her current attorney, Kelly B Sims, replaced.
The reason for the replacement is actually a much bigger story than the ridiculous Shellie Zimmerman perjury charge.
Mr. Herring dropped Mrs. Zimmerman because he was fearful.   Fearful and unnerved because defending George Zimmerman’s wife ultimately would mean he would have to expose the deception and corruption of the Orlando crew.    This crew surrounds the Zimmerman’s and the fraud; if he honestly wanted to represent the best interests of his client he would have to expose it.
Many people have been upset at our position once we identified the complete “self-interest” of Mark O’Mara (Mark O’Money).    Even more folks challenged us to prove that O’Money was unethical, and even perhaps unlawful.   Well here you go.
This same ‘expose the unethical lawyer mindset’ is what ultimately led to Herring getting spooked and dropping Shellie Zimmerman.
“Fear”.
Fear can do strange things to people who are not grounded in principle and honesty. Fear of exposure, fear of losing prestige, fear of being attacked, fear.
Fear is the key weapon of evil. Fear is the creeping noise, the whisper in your ear that makes you doubt.

The most effective way to defend Shellie Zimmerman was to use “Truth and honesty”, because ultimately within the purest form of Truth there is no agenda.   Both George and Shellie Zimmerman had nothing to fear from the truth, others did.
Michael Herring was given easily verifiable information that George’s attorney Mark O’Mara knew with specific certainty about the money in the Pay Pal legal defense fund well before the first bond hearing;  and if needed it could be proven in court.
It could also be easily proven that George Zimmerman was not lying in his recorded jailhouse conversations when he told his friend of the previous discussions about the PayPal account with O’Mara – well before the bond hearing.
It was Mark O’Mara’s specific instructions to his client(s) to fill out the financial affidavit avoiding disclosure of the funds.   Again, the truth has no agenda…… But Mark O’Mara did, and subsequently so too did Michael Herring.
As a consequence of the position created by O’Mara, Herring’s agenda became protecting his colleage by avoiding the case.
He, Michael Herring, dropped Shellie as a client like a hot potato when he realized that defending Shellie could mean presenting fact-based evidence to show the court O’Mara intentionally manipulated the disclosures of his client.
It was O’Mara all along who created the legal ramifications that his client George, and now his wife Shellie, were going to be punished for.
It may be argued that Mark O’Mara did not quite know, at the time, whether legally the PayPal defense funds were/are a part of the recordable assets of George Zimmerman.   Even the bond hearing judge Lester was unsure of how the law would handle such donated defense funds as they pertain to financial considerations.
But that’s not really the bigger issue.   The bigger issue was when the amount and existence of the fund was exploited by the prosecution, Mark O’Mara said he had no knowledge of the account at all.   This is patently and provably false.
O’Mara also labeled his own client, George Zimmerman, a liar:

As the Orlando Sentinel reported at the time:  O’Mara argued in paperwork filed earlier this week that Zimmerman broke no rules while he was free on bail and that he surrendered when the judge revoked bond. The defendant realizes now that remaining silent about all that money rolling in was a mistake, O’Mara wrote.  (link)
Subsequently it was Mark O’Mara’s specific and self-interested actions that led to the loss of George’s initial bond and subsequent re-incarceration.
It was the self-described “control freak” controlling actions of Mark O’Mara which then structured the 2nd bond, selected the bonding agent, and ensured George Zimmerman would remain under his specific control.
It was Mark O’Mara who selected his personal friend, the former IRS tax attorney and CPA to coordinate the defense fund.
The structure of the account was done so that O’Mara could control George Zimmerman’s access to it, and set up a system where George would have to ask him for any withdrawl from his own defense account.   This allowed O’Mara total control over expenditures.
However, it was also this construct which drew the attention of the Florida Bar.
It was, as an outcome of this construct, where Mark O’Mara put his client George Zimmerman in a position of inability to seek alternate legal counsel, effectively having to keep O’Mara retained as a condition of his 2nd bonding structure.
Why?
People will hold all manner of opinions as to “why”;  however, our research into O’Mara’s business dealings, and interviews with his peers and prior clients, lend us to the opinion O’Mara’s view was he had to.
Initially like everyone else, I thought Shellie and George had misled the court.  I even wrote about it, and felt sorry for O’Mara.    However, after some research I recognized that it was not George and Shellie misleading people, it was actually their attorney, Mark O’Mara.
To say I was stunned would be an extreme understatement.
However, from that day of realization forward, I began to see through the house of mirrors which actually represented the construct of Mr.  O’Mara.    Unfortunately, much of our discovery was so troubling we were unable to share at the time.
George Zimmerman speaking openly, truthfully, or heaven forbid publically, about the PayPal account fiasco was, essentially, a risk to Mark O’Mara.
And don’t forget about the passport issue.   A passport which George did turn in to his attorney; and yet it sat unreported in the briefcase of Mark O’Mara for over a month.   The state not having custody of the passport was used by the prosecution against George Zimmerman during his bond revocation.
The attorney client relationship was forcibly retained and manipulated not only for George’s legal defense, but additionally to insure any discovery regarding the construct of the financial affidavit would never reached the light of day, the Florida Bar, or perhaps worse, the court of public opinion.
Shellie’s first attorney, Herring, apparently wanted no part of being the person to tell the truth; constructing a situation where O’Mara, the college fraternity brother of Judge Lester, and the close friend of Mark Nejame, Greg Francis and John Morgan, was exposed to the world as a self-serving manipulator of the case.
This was why Michael Herring dropped Shellie Zimmerman even though her husband George was himself willing to go back to jail if needed to protect her.  [Remember, George spent the entire month of June 2012 in jail – waiting for a 2nd bond hearing]
At the time this issue was a blazing inferno amid the media with claims of a lack of credibility against both George and Shellie, George was actually willing to return to jail if the truth behind what happened would protect his wife.
If George needed to  implicate his own attorney, and subsequently see his 2nd bond structure lead to his own re-incarceration, he was willing to do it.   On July 20th 2012, we outlined the issue thusly:

What a horrid catch-22.  If she defends herself, then her husband’s defense is weakened because the truth damages his attorney.   Yet neither George nor Shellie did anything except listened to the advice of the attorney who could potentially be damaged by the advice they followed.

So what is Georges better option?   Head back to jail, allow the O’Mara chips to fall where they may, meanwhile his defense crumbles and a toxic cloud so damaging looms that few, if any, attorney would be willing to step in and salvage the pieces.

Can you think of a more horrid scenario to fall asleep to every night.

Do you let your wife fall on a sword she did not forge?  Or do you accept the outcome of her defense, if she can even find an attorney to represent her truthfully and lawfully.  (more)

But Herring wanted no part of it.
Michael Herring thought it would destroy his own career, and he was not going to put his financial livelihood on the line for principle or truth. No way. Guess they don’t teach you that aspect in Law School, or even in the Ethics classes.
So on July 19th, 2012, Michael Herring told Shellie Zimmerman he was dropping her from representation because he was not willing to face down the corrupt and institutional legal courthouse crowd in Orlando and surrounding areas.
Thankfully Shellie was able to find current attorney, Kelly B Sims.    Her case has been postponed and delayed several times as the State looked to use leverage over her;  pending their legal action to pressure both George Zimmerman and Mark O’Mara.
So it will be interesting, now that George Zimmerman has been found Not-Guilty, to watch what defense plan Kelly Sims takes to exonerate Shellie of wrongdoing.   The construct of the entire perjury charge is false on its face.   Shellie did not lie in court – she openly said she would call to find out the information about the current PayPal balance.
And boy howdy did Angela Corey and her team of prosecutors use this issue in the pre-trial manipulations of Mark O’Mara.
Bernie De La Rionda even using the leverage as deflection when the prosecution was being accused of Brady discovery Violations.
Angela Corey et al obviously had the tapes from the jailhouse conversations, and knew that GZ was on tape telling people O’Mara was aware of the PayPal accounts.   The State knew darn well that George had stated on those jailhouse tapes he told O’Mara, and they used that knowledge to their advantage.
The State even intentionally withheld releasing those jailhouse recording tapes until after O’Mara was on record with his denials;  this was to gain additional leverage against him.   The State then strategically released the tapes after the second bond hearing.
This painted O’Mara into a corner that no-one was paying attention to.   The prosecution ended up with leverage over the defense attorney, and when they needed it they used it.
Eventually, after George was released from the month-long incarceration due to his initial bond being revoked, I asked his brother, Robert Zimmerman Jr., why the heck they were still sticking with O’Mara when it was obvious O’Mara was covering his own ass at the expense of his client.
Robert was understandably frustrated and when questioned shared his own angst and personal conversations with O’Mara where he warned that failure to disclose could “come back to bite him in the ass“.  It sounded as if both Robert and George were rightly furious with O’Mara, and Robert shared their conversations with Mr. O’Mara in that regard.
George apparently had let O’Mara know how upset he was at this issue now being constructed as if he was the one at fault.    Frequently George reminded O’Mara that he was to blame for the public image of George being one of deception.
In July 2012, when I inquired as to why they would stick with O’Mara knowing his self-interest superseded his representation for George, Robert Jr essentially pointed to two reasons:

• 1.  The family, and in particular George, was now holding out hope that O’Mara’s own internal guilt would lead to a more aggressive representation.   In essence they hoped he would try harder because he screwed up.

• 2.  There was no other viable option.    Some conversations with other lawyers had taken place;  however between the case being highly charged, the case being fraught with deception both external and internal, and, most of all because O’Mara now controlled ALL the money, it seemed impossible to extract from the death grip of control he had placed around all of their lives.  Again, in short, there was no other viable option.

We’ve taken a lot of flack for pointing out the legal risk that O’Mara created.   But it was the layer of deception, which was solely created by O’Mara, which  caused a perfect storm swirling around George, and ultimately aided the State in getting the case to trial.
Behind the scenes no-one really understood how much actual leverage the prosecution held against O’Mara.   He had to defend George, while walking on eggshells across a narrow balance beam he personally constructed of balsa wood.
George Zimmerman, and his entire family, suffered greatly because of the manipulative self-preservation agenda being a distraction in the psyche for the leader of his defense team.
The fact they all were able to remain resolute -amid the face of all the deception and adversity- speaks to a level of self-control I doubt any defendant, or their family, could ever duplicate.   Quite remarkable actually.

*Note – This post has been updated from it’s original content for context, clarity and citation.