Zimmerman leaves Fla. jail on $1M bond

Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla.

Neighborhood-watch leader George Zimmerman was released from jail Friday for a second time while he awaits his second-degree murder trial for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman left the Seminole County Jail a day after Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester granted a $1 million bail with strict conditions. He wore a white shirt and dress jacket as he walked out.

The neighborhood-watch leader is required to stay in Seminole County. He was allowed to leave Florida after his first release in April. He must be electronically monitored, can’t open a bank account, obtain a passport or set foot on the grounds of the local airport. He has a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

“He’s very happy to be out,” Don West, one of Zimmerman’s attorneys, told reporters outside the jail. “Certainly it’s been a sobering experience spending the last month in jail in that kind of environment.”

Zimmerman had been released on a $150,000 bond in April, but the judge revoked it last month after prosecutors presented evidence that he and his wife misled the court about how much money they had available to pay for the bond. They didn’t tell the judge that donations from a website for Zimmerman’s legal defense had raised around $135,000 at the time of his first bond hearing.

Prosecutors argued that Zimmerman and his wife talked in code during recorded jailhouse conversations about how to transfer the donations to different bank accounts.