SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman’s wife pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor perjury charge for lying during a bail hearing after her husband’s arrest, and she was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service.
Shellie Zimmerman, 26, had been charged with felony perjury after she lied about the couple’s assets during a bail hearing following her husband’s arrest for the fatal 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was acquitted last month of second-degree murder.
If convicted, Shellie Zimmerman would had faced up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. As part of the deal, she wrote a letter of apology to Judge Kenneth Lester, who presided over last year’s bail hearing. “By lying under oath, I let my God down, I let your Honor and the court down, I let my family and friends down, and, most of all, I let myself down,” she wrote in the letter.
