Woman filed harassment complaint against George Zimmerman before tweets

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — George Zimmerman, the man who gained notoriety when he was acquitted in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012, was barred from Twitter this week after nude photos and contact information for a woman he said was an ex-girlfriend  were posted to his account.

The tweets said that she cheated on him “with a dirty Muslim."

Zimmerman also accused her in a tweet of stealing from him: “Did I go to (sic) far? I won't even mention that she stole a gun and cash from me.”

Channel 9 learned the woman at the center of the tweets filed a harassment complaint against Zimmerman in September.

The woman claimed Zimmerman was harassing her and her son through text messages after she broke up with Zimmerman.

When she texted Zimmerman to stop, as instructed by the responding deputy, the deputy noted that Zimmerman immediately responded with, “Or what?”

Florida recently became one of 26 states with a law against revenge porn.

The Florida law went into effect on Oct. 1, but it may not be enough in this case.

The law aims to protect people from sexual cyber-harassment, or revenge porn. It makes it a misdemeanor to post explicit photos of someone without their permission.

Before it was suspended by Twitter, Zimmerman's account @TherealGeorgeZ showed two different photos of a woman he called Heather. The woman is topless in the photos.

Seminole County deputies said the pictures don’t rise to the level of a sex crime.

“Someone who shared private photographs of themselves that maybe they wouldn’t have shared with anyone else, and then, lo and behold, that person betrays them on the Internet for the entire public to view,” said WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer.

While the tweets allegedly sent by Zimmerman are embarrassing, they fall into a legal loophole.

“As long as you don’t post a picture that is total nudity, you may avoid criminal prosecution,” said Sheaffer.

The woman’s nipples aren’t showing in the images.

“What may have saved the person who posted this is that it was cropped at or about the breast level,” Sheaffer said.

Twitter does not comment on individual accounts, but officials with the social media platform said it has rules that prohibit sharing someone’s personal phone and email addresses, as well as intimate photos taken or distributed without the person’s consent.

Less than a month ago, Zimmerman posted a photo of Trayvon Martin's dead body on Twitter and later said it was posted in error.

Deputies said it will be awhile before anything is concluded in the case.

WFTV