George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watchman who shot and killed unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, is back in a courtroom, and has won another victory.
Zimmerman, 34, is accused of cyberstalking by Dennis Warren, a private investigator who claims that Zimmerman sent him close to 200 voicemails, texts and calls over ten days in December.
The judge in the Orlando-area civil suit denied a motion for a restraining order against Zimmerman, saying that he did not pose the threat that Warren said he did.
However, that decision comes after the defendant has had continued run-ins with the law since Martin’s 2012 death and Zimmerman’s self-defense acquittal on second-degree murder charges in 2013.
Domestic violence allegations
The first weeks after Zimmerman’s trial saw him help a family out of an overturned SUV and get pulled over for speeding in Texas, but his next appearance in court came that fall, when his wife Shellie filed for divorce.
Criminal charges, however, were brought against Zimmerman in November for behavior towards his then-girlfriend Samantha Scheibe, who said that he pointed a shotgun at her for a minute out of rage.
Scheibe said that December that she was not afraid of Zimmerman and wanted the case dropped.
But a different girlfriend later helped bring a similar case against him in early 2015, leading to his arrest for allegedly throwing a wine bottle at her.
That case was also dropped within a month as the woman backed away from the claims and prosecutors did not bring formal charges.
Road rage incidents
Zimmerman was also accused but never charged for a September 2014 road rage incident where Matthew Apperson called police and said that he received a death threat.
“Do you know who I am?” the defendant, still making national headlines regularly, allegedly said.
Police in Lake Mary, Fla., did not arrest or charge Zimmerman for the incident, though he and Apperson would later meet again on the roads.
Apperson was arrested in spring 2015 after opening fire from his car at Zimmerman, who received minor injuries from broken glass.
The shooter said that his adversary had waved a gun at him and he was acting in self-defense, but he was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2016.
Restaurant clashes
Zimmerman remained in the public eye for more of the wrong reasons in 2016, when he auctioned off the gun that killed Trayvon Martin for $250,000.
But he also made headlines for confrontations at restaurants.
An August 2016 police report from the Gators Riverside Grille in Sanford, Fla., featured Zimmerman saying that he had been punched in the face by another diner, who threatened to kill him.
The owner of the restaurant told the Daily News that the altercation consisted of a few shoves after Zimmerman bragged about himself and said “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Later in the year Zimmerman allegedly became belligerent at another central Florida establishment, a cigar bar in Orlando, and yelled racial slurs at a waitress.
A manager at the Corona Cigar Co. told the News at the time that “we don’t tolerate any racial or bad behavior.”
Zimmerman said that he was hit by a black man, but video referenced in the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office report said that the man only patted him on the arm after being refused a handshake.
No one was arrested or charged in either of the restaurant confrontations.