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In the way of background, Zimmerman is charging that Trayvon Martin’s support team, including Martin’s parents and their attorney Benjamin Crump, knowingly substituted an imposter witness for the real “phone witness” in order to secure Zimmerman’s arrest for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin

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Like Guy, de la Rionda pleads incompetence. Among other failures, he admits he did not “verify that Rachel Jeantel was Diamond Eugene as she had claimed.” Nor did he “attempt to verify that the voice, tone, and inflections of the 16- year-old girl named Diamond who was recorded in the roughly 20 minute phone interview conducted by Benjamin Crump on March 19, 2012 matched the voice, tone, and inflections of 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel in your recorded interview on April 2, 2012 and her later statements.”

Had de la Rionda simply chalked his poor performance up to carelessness or indifference, he would have been on relatively safe ground legally. Inexplicably, however, he waded into some seriously murky waters.

When asked whether he investigated the discrepancies between what the real Diamond Eugene said during a March 19 phone call and what Rachel Jeantel said under oath during an April 2 interview, de la Rionda’s attorney responded for him, “de la Rionda denies that he recorded an interview of Rachel Jeantel on or about April 2, 2012.”

This undeniably false claim was made twice in de la Rionda’s official “Response to Request for Admissions.” Nor was he using the word “recorded” to evade responsibility. In response to another question, de la Rionda denied that he “conducted the April 2, 2012, interview.” The interview was audiotaped. I have listened to it many times myself and read the transcript. I do not know who pushed the “record” button, but de la Rionda surely conducted it.