O'Mara: State unlocked trove of info from Trayvon's cellphone

[Dan McGuire]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-trayvon-cell-
phone-new-tests-20130131,0,4945051.story

New court paperwork reveals that prosecutors have unlocked a great deal
more information from Trayvon Martin's cellphone, including satellite-
tracking information that shows where it was in the days leading up to his
shooting.

But if it also lays out the teenager's movements Feb. 26 — the day Trayvon
was shot and killed by George Zimmerman — prosecutors have not released
that to defense attorneys.

Defense attorney Mark O'Mara disclosed that information Wednesday in a new
court filing, one asking for more time to prepare for trial.

Zimmerman, the 29-year-old Neighborhood Watch volunteer charged with
second-degree murder, says he acted in self-defense when he shot the
unarmed black 17-year-old. The trial is currently set for June 10.

One of O'Mara's frustrations, he wrote, has been getting Assistant State
Attorney Bernie de la Rionda to fully disclose evidence in the case.

Information from Trayvon's phone is one example. The Android-powered
smartphone was found near his body, its battery dead, the night of the
shooting. It's a key piece of evidence because a young Miami woman says
she was on the phone with him moments before the shooting and overheard
the conversation between Trayvon and Zimmerman.

Sanford police and Florida Department of Law Enforcement employees had
limited success finding out what was on the phone because they were
"locked out," the consequence of someone trying repeatedly without the
proper password or PIN to gain access to its data.

The state then shipped the phone to a law-enforcement agency in California
for more analysis, O'Mara wrote in his new motion, then sent it to a New
Jersey company, which successfully unlocked the data in its flash memory,
including GPS information that showed its changing locations.

What it found has not been made public.

"It shows you within 10 feet where the phone is," O'Mara told the Orlando
Sentinel.

De la Rionda provided those new findings to defense attorneys Jan. 18,
O'Mara wrote, but with a gaping hole.

"While the analysis includes GPS locating records for Mr. Martin's phone
for all of the time he was in the Sanford area, specifically absent is any
such data from February 26, 2012, the date of the event," O'Mara wrote.

"Maybe it's coincidence, but I'm way past [believing it's] coincidence,"
O'Mara said.

There also seem to be missing phone calls and text messages, he wrote.

De la Rionda's office did not respond to an email asking for comment.

O'Mara's motion also complains about prosecutors not providing him
information about the young woman who says she was on the phone with
Trayvon in the moments just before the shooting.

She was 18 years old that day — not 16 as Martin family attorney Benjamin
Crump identified her — O'Mara said, and prosecutors have not provided
enough information about her to allow him to subpoena her Twitter and
Facebook records.

The judge earlier authorized those subpoenas.

The state is within "the letter of the law" in the way it's handling the
release of cellphone records and information about the young Miami woman,
O'Mara wrote, but because it's being so adversarial, that's requiring
hundreds of more hours of work for defense attorneys, making it harder for
them to be prepared in time for a June 10 trial.

O'Mara also complained about a long battle to get cleaner and more easily
understood audio from a recording of the young woman made by Crump and ABC
News in March.

The phone conversation lasted 26 minutes, O'Mara wrote, but the recording
is only 14 minutes. It also has "at least seven starts, stops and edits,"
he wrote.

Two weeks ago, he asked the judge to order ABC News and reporter Matt
Gutman to surrender all recordings, notes and correspondence related to
that recording.