Florida must pay Zimmerman's legal costs, says lawyer 27 August 2013 Last updated at 17:46 "The verdict will not define Trayvon's life," his parents last week told the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan The lawyer for a Florida man cleared of killing an unarmed black teenager has reportedly said he will ask the state to pay some of his client's legal fees. The attorney told a local newspaper he would ask a judge to authorise between $200,000 (£130,000) and $300,000 to cover George Zimmerman's expenses. Under Florida law, the state must cover the cost as Mr Zimmerman was acquitted, said the defence lawyer, Mark O'Mara. Mr Zimmerman, 29, was found not guilty in July of Trayvon Martin's death. The neighbourhood watchman admitted shooting the 17-year-old in an Orlando suburb last year, but said it was an act of self-defence. The case fiercely divided the US. Mr O'Mara told the Orlando Sentinel that the state of Florida was obliged to pay his client's legal expenses, except for the cost of his lawyer. He said this would include the costs of expert witnesses, travel, paying for transcripts and an animated video that the defence team used to reconstruct their account of the fatal confrontation in a gated community in the town of Sanford.