Joe.My.God. LGBT News
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
A blogger who wrote about Kathryn Knott – the Bucks County woman convicted of participating in a 2014 attack on a gay couple in Center City – has sued Knott, Knott’s father [above right], the Bucks County district attorney, and others.
Kathleen O’Donnell, 61, of Norristown, says in her lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, that her free-speech rights were violated and that she was fired from her job the day Bucks detectives went to her workplace asking about her online writings.
O’Donnell’s blog – “Knotty is a Tramp,” what she called a “parody account,” was created on Sept. 26, 2014. The suit says she was “expressing her opinions and outrage” about the attack on the two gay men when there was intense media scrutiny of Knott, who before the attack had expressed antigay sentiments on social media.
O’Donnell alleges that Knott learned of the blog and that her father, Karl Knott, directed her to complain to the Bucks District Attorney’s Office. Karl Knott was then chief of Chalfont Borough police in Bucks County and now is captain at the Central Bucks Regional Police Department.
O’Donnell claims that the elder Knott directed detectives to threaten her with arrest over the blog, which they claim constituted “fraudulent impersonation” of Kathryn Knott. The Bucks County District Attorney says he decided not to file charges against O’Donnell because she agreed to stop writing the blog. O’Donnell is seeking at least $5M in punitive damages. Kathryn Knott began serving a five to ten month sentence in February. (Tipped by JMG reader Joe)