Without evidence of racial animus there was no basis for a Federal civil rights prosecution, and in fact none was forthcoming. Earlier this year, however, with public interest in him waning, Taaffe suddenly recalled that he had, after all, had a phone conversation with Zimmerman in which the media-described “white Hispanic” had voiced racial animus towards Martin.  It appeared, suddenly and literally incredibly, as if there might be a hook on which to hang a civil rights prosecution of Zimmerman after all.

Could this be true?

Short answer: no.

For reasons known only to the Orlando Sentinel, they waited until the 17th paragraph of their 22 paragraph online post to un-bury the lede:

Taaffe said he expected to testify about a phone call days before Zimmerman’s arrest from someone who claimed to be Zimmerman and made a “racial comment” about the case, Taaffe said.

He said the call came from an unknown number, so he couldn’t be 100 percent sure it was Zimmerman.

via George Zimmerman | Frank Taaffe | DOJ | Trayvon Martin.

I am amazed that they were still trying to put Maybelline on that pig of a case.  I guess they figured it was worth the shot to keep playing Racial Politics so near to the elections, specially if the internal polls really showed they were about to take a beating.  When even Benjamin Crump, the Martin Family lawyer who got the whole racial angle started did not deign himself to comment about the new Federal attempt (at least none I could find in the web), you know they were in trouble.

Then again Mr. Crump is doing what he does best in another highly visible case charged with race: Ferguson’s Mike Brown.