George Zimmerman stands alone at the defense table moments after the jury left the courtroom to deliberate during his trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Florida July 12, 2013. 
 
 NEW YORK After his acquittal on murder charges for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman may go to law school to help people wrongly accused of crimes like himself, close friends told Reuters on Sunday. 
 
 The 29-year old was found not guilty late Saturday for shooting the unarmed black teenager in a case that sparked a national debate on race and gun laws. One of his first calls was to defense witness John Donnelly and his wife Leanne Benjamin. 
 
 They got to know Zimmerman in 2004 when he and a black friend opened up an insurance office in a Florida building where Benjamin worked. They grew close and the couple spent time with him during the trial. 
 
 Over dinner with Zimmerman recently, Benjamin said he told them he would like to go to law school. 
 
 "I'd like to help other people like me," she quoted him as telling them. 
 
 Zimmerman, an insurance investigator, attended community college and was a credit shy of an associate's degree in criminal justice but was kicked out of school because he posed a danger to the campus, according to family sources. 
 
 "Everybody said he was a cop-wannabe but he's interested in law," Benjamin said. "He sees it as a potential path forward to help other people like himself." 
 
 Zimmerman's defense attorney Mark O'Mara agreed. 
 
 "He wanted to be a cop for awhile, but he's talked about going to law school," O'Mara told Reuters on Sunday. 
 
 "He has a real interest in the law and ... prosecuting appropriately - not like what he got - is something he's very interested in. I will not be surprised if he ends up in criminal law," O'Mara said. "His dad was a judge, and he wants to be a prosecutor or a lawyer." 
 
 Experience shows that re-building life after a major trial may prove difficult, even for those acquitted of headline-making crimes. 
 
 Casey Anthony, the young Orlando mother acquitted in 2011 of killing her 3-year-old daughter Caylee, remains hidden and unemployed while her lawyers fight civil lawsuits seeking monetary damages from her. 
 
 Former NFL star O.J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of killing his wife and an acquaintance, but his life fell apart. He lost a $33 million wrongful death civil suit in 1997, moved to Florida where he was arrested and eventually sent to prison in 2008 for up to 33 years for robbery and kidnapping. 
 
 THREATS TO HIS LIFE 
 
 Even O'Mara and Zimmerman's brother, Robert, admitted his life would never be the same after the trial, which has forced him to go out in disguise and wear bullet proof vests because of threats to his life. 
 
 Donnelly told Reuters that Zimmerman was hurt very deeply by prosecutors' portrayals of him as a racist vigilante who targeted and pursued Martin simply because he was black. 
 
 "The person they are talking about is somebody completely different," Donnelly quoted Zimmerman as telling him recently. "Sometimes I have to go look at a mirror. They are talking about a totally different human being. They are talking about a racist. I'm not a racist." 
 
 He said Zimmerman was anything but. 
 
 "He's been mentoring young black kids for years, he launched a campaign to help a homeless black man who was beaten up by a white kid, and he still just can't believe all the things that have been said about him in the media." 
 
 Other friends of Zimmerman who spoke exclusively to Reuters remain angry at what he has endured since the shooting. 
 
 "I knew the man was innocent the whole time,'' said Jorge Rodriguez. "He called me yesterday to thank me ... for believing in him. He was just so relieved." 
 
 Rodriguez is deeply frustrated by civil rights activists like Al Sharpton, who he feels pressured prosecutors into charging Zimmerman with a crime he didn't commit. 
 
 "Everybody asked for justice, and they got it," Rodriguez said. "Everybody asked for George to be arrested, and they got it. Everybody asked for George to be tried, and they got it. Everybody asked for a fair trial, and they got it." 
 
 He dismissed criticism of the prosecution, the six female jurors and calls by civil rights groups for a federal civil rights investigation. The Martin family is also considering a wrongful death civil suit. 
 
 "Now can't we leave George Zimmerman alone?", Rodriguez said. "It was nothing about racism. It was about the community being robbed and broken into, and one man stood up. The state should be giving this man an award, and instead they took him to trial." 
 
 (Additional reporting by Barbara Liston in Sanford; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou, Bernard Orr) ||||| Reuters Sanford police officer Timothy Smith holds up the gun used to kill Trayvon Martin, while testifying during George Zimmerman's trial in Sanford, Fla., on June 28. 
 
 The weapon George Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon Martin will likely be returned to him, if he requests it. 
 
 Shawn Vincent, an aide to defense attorney Mark O’Mara, told NBC News on Sunday that the Keltec 9mm handgun Zimmerman used to shoot and kill Martin on Feb. 26, 2012 will be returned, but said he did not think authorities have released the weapon yet. 
 
 “It’s something that will happen, but I don’t think it has happened,” Vincent said. 
 
 Vincent cast doubt on reports that the weapon has already been returned to Zimmerman, who was acquitted late Saturday of second-degree murder in Martin's death by a Florida jury. 
 
 “I’m not sure that’s accurate,” he said. 
 
 Thousands of Trayvon Martin supporters from across the country took to the streets after a Florida jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder for the 17-year-old's shooting death. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports. 
 
 Florida law bars people “convicted of a felony in the courts of this state” from possessing “firearms, ammunition, or electric weapons or devices unlawful.” 
 
 But because Zimmerman “is not a convicted felon, he can keep his gun,” University of Florida law professor Darren Hutchinson told NBC News on Sunday. 
 
 However, matters could get murkier if federal prosecutors file charges against Zimmerman and he is convicted of a federal felony, Hutchinson said. 
 
 The Justice Department began reviewing the case less than a month after the shooting in Sanford, Fla., and on Sunday the NAACP launched a MoveOn.org petition calling for civil rights charges. 
 
 A statement released by the Justice Department on Sunday said that there is "an open investigation into the death of Trayvon Martin." 
 
 Hutchinson said that under Florida law a conviction on a federal felony charge would throw Zimmerman’s ability to possess a handgun “in jeopardy.” 
 
 “If the federal government pursues charges against him and they succeed, he would lose his right to possess a gun,” he said. 
 
 Zimmerman’s weapon was turned over to police on the night of the shooting and later entered into evidence in Zimmerman’s trial. 
 
 Though George Zimmerman's criminal trial has ended, there are plenty of questions surrounding the road ahead for both him and the family of Trayvon Martin. NBC's Ron Mott reports. 
 
 The handgun, like all other evidence in the case, has been handled by the Sanford Police Department. 
 
 The custodian of records and the evidence team were not available Sunday, so the weapon is unlikely to have been returned to Zimmerman, according to Sanford Police Capt. James McAuliffe. 
 
 McAuliffe said he does not believe there would be any restrictions or holds placed on any evidence in the case, now that the trial has come to a close. 
 
 He added that Zimmerman would be required to make a formal request for the return of his weapon. At that time, it would be signed over to him with a receipt. 
 
 Special Prosecutor Angela Corey said Saturday that the case against Zimmerman had “never been about the right to bear arms." 
 
 “This case has never been about race, nor has it never been about the right to bear arms, not in the sense of proving this as a criminal case,” she said in remarks to reporters after the jurors' verdict was read. 
 
 “But the right to bear arms is a right in which we all believe. I especially believe in that right,” she said later. “What we want is responsible use when someone feels they have to use a gun to take a life. They have to be responsible in their use and we believe that this case was all along was about boundaries and that George Zimmerman exceeded those boundaries.” 
 
 Tracy Connor of NBC News contributed to this report. 
 
 George Zimmerman has sued NBC Universal for defamation. The company strongly denies the allegation. 
 
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– Now that George Zimmerman has been acquitted, he can have back the pistol he used to kill Trayvon Martin—and he needs it "even more" than before, his lawyer tells ABC. Defense attorney Mark O'Mara says his client has no regrets about carrying a gun the night he killed the unarmed teenager, and he plans to go armed again because "there's even more reason now, isn't there? There are a lot of people out there who really hate him, even though they shouldn't." Zimmerman might not be able to get a concealed carry permit, but he will be able to keep his gun unless he is convicted of a federal felony, a University of Florida law professor tells NBC. Zimmerman faces a potential federal prosecution as well as possible civil lawsuits, though O'Mara says he would "welcome" the latter. The lawyer says Zimmerman might now move out of Florida—though he will probably struggle to find work anywhere in the country. "I don't think he can work. I don't think anyone can hire him," he says of Zimmerman, who had worked as an insurance investigator. "George is a pariah." Reuters adds that O'Mara, along with some of Zimmerman's friends, say Zimmerman is now interested in attending law school in order to "help other people like me."