Crump: Don't unseal the $1 million-plus settlement Trayvon's parents received
April 15, 2013|By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel
Benjamin Crump has formally asked Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson to make sure the specific amount of the $1 million-plus settlement Trayvon Martin's parents reached with George Zimmerman's home owners' association be kept secret.
Trayvon's parents, Crump wrote, "in no way wanted their son killed in order to pursue a civil settlement."
Crump is the attorney for Trayvon's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, and on April 4, Crump filed a copy of the settlement under seal in George Zimmerman's court case file at the Seminole County Courthouse.
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www.GSPRushFit.com/ReviewsA portion of it was available to the public for a short time the following day, but the total amount and the names of the parties making the settlement payments had been edited out.
On April 5, Seminole County Clerk of Courts Maryanne Morse notified Crump that she intended to unseal it, saying it did not meet the legal standard of a confidential filing.
Morse today said that Nelson will now decide whether it should be unsealed. It's not clear when she will rule.
Last week defense attorney Mark O'Mara filed paperwork, asking the judge to unseal it, saying the payments could reveal a motive for Trayvon's parents to be biased when they testify at Zimmerman's June 10 trial.
O'Mara cited as an example Tracy Martin's initial response when he listened to screams on a 911 tape. Lead investigator Chris Serino, of the Sanford Police Department, played the 911 recording for Trayvon's father a few days after the Feb. 26, 2012 shooting. At that time, Trayvon's father told Serino it was not the voice of his son.
Tracy Martin has since said the opposite.
In paperwork made public today, Crump called O'Mara's suggestion that Tracy Martin had a financial motive to change his story "unintelligible" and "devoid of merit."
He changed his story, Crump wrote, because he has since heard a clearer version of the recording and when he first heard it, was in "an extreme emotional state."
Crump asked the judge to only block the payment amount from public view.
Keeping it secret "is essential to avoid irreparable harm in the negotiations and exposure of other claims/lawsuits," Crump wrote.
"Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin did not encourage or create the circumstances giving rise to the killing of their son Trayvon Martin…," Crump wrote.
Zimmerman is the 29-year-old Neighborhood Watch volunteer charged with second-degree murder. . The defendant says he acted in self-defense.
rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394.