The lawsuit is being filed by Larry Klayman, formerly of Judicial Watch. Klayman’s complaint will allege a conspiracy between the Martin family and attorney Benjamin Crump to lie about circumstances surrounding Martin’s death. From the press release:
The complaint alleges that in March 2012, the Sanford Police Department thoroughly investigated the shooting of Trayvon Martin and closed the case as self-defense. A week later, Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump produced a recorded audio tape of “Diamond Eugene” whom he said was Trayvon’s 16-year-old girlfriend who was on the phone with Trayvon just before the altercation. However, two weeks later, 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel, the alleged imposter, appeared before prosecutors claiming to be “Diamond Eugene” and provided false statements to incriminate Zimmerman based on coaching from others.
These allegations are the result of newly discovered evidence just published in a book and film by Hollywood film director Joel Gilbert, called The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America.
I’d never heard of this film or book before today. According to Amazon the book was self-published in September and the film was released in October. There’s a website promoting the film which has a Q&A section with answers by the director. Here’s a sample:
What’s the story of Trayvon’s real girlfriend, Diamond Eugene?
Brittany Diamond Eugene was on the phone with Trayvon in his final minutes. She was only 16 at the time and tried very hard to just disappear. However, she faced enormous pressure to come forward from Trayvon’s friends, parents, and their family attorney Benjamin Crump. Crump even admitted to Court TV, “We pushed her making a statement.” When Diamond finally acquiesced to a recorded phone interview, she mostly replied to Crump in the affirmative and repeated back his “Skittles and Iced Tea” TV narrative. Then Diamond disappeared again and 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel was substituted for Diamond…
What did your research reveal about Trayvon Martin?
I concluded that Trayvon was neither the future rocket scientist the media made him out to be, nor was he a thug. Trayvon was a good kid with many friends and family that loved him. However, he was also a very troubled teenager. I came to see Trayvon’s life as a series of betrayals, one more crushing than the next. His pain played out in reckless behaviors such as fighting, gun dealing, and heavy marijuana use. For the first time, Trayvon’s last words are revealed in my film. He requested of Zimmerman “Tell Mama ‘Licia I’m sorry,” referring to his stepmother Alicia Stanley. This tells Trayvon’s story more than anything.
Why didn’t Zimmerman’s attorneys uncover Rachel Jeantel as a fake witness?
Don West and Mark O’Mara simply didn’t have enough time because Florida prosecutors withheld much of the evidence until just before the trial. In fact, Zimmerman’s attorneys had to spend two thirds of their time in court fighting to get discovery. Meanwhile, the prosecutors had all the documents I had for over a year, plus subpoena powers! If I could figure it out in a few months, why didn’t they? Or maybe they did?
I agree with the author’s general take on the significance of this case for race relations in America. If you want to identify the real source of the boom in identity politics on campus in the past few years, it pretty clearly starts with Black Lives Matter. And BLM starts with the death of Trayvon Martin (though it really became a force after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson).
As for the rest of this, it certainly would be explosive if it were true but extraordinary claims requires extraordinary proof. The idea that a substitute witness was planted by the family’s attorney and the defense never caught on just seems hard to accept. If true, Crump would be disbarred and Zimmerman’s attorneys would look like idiots. This sounds a bit too much like a thriller novel rather than real life. In fact, it sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory. If this filmmaker has the evidence, I shouldn’t have to pay for his movie and book to get it.
Larry Klayman was set to give a press conference about the lawsuit Thursday at noon, to be followed by a screening of the film. However, the theater that had agreed to screen the film canceled it today.
Coral Gables Art Cinema was not aware of all of the details surrounding this event and has made a decision to cancel it.
— Coral Gables Art Cinema (@gablescinema) December 4, 2019
Finally, here’s an NBC News report on the lawsuit. If you want to watch the trailer for the film, it’s here.
