Kathryn Knott is facing another legal challenge stemming from her involvement in a 2014 gay bashing in Philadelphia.
Kathleen O’Donnell, of Norristown, filed a federal lawsuit last Friday, claiming she unjustly lost her job after posting Internet comments about Knott. O’Donnell is seeking punitive damages of at least $5 million, as well as compensatory damages of at least $150,000.
Named in the suit are Knott; her father, Karl Knott; Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler; two Bucks County detectives; and Bucks County.
Knott, Kevin Harrigan and Philip Williams were arrested Sept. 24, 2014, for an attack earlier that month on a gay couple in Center City. Two days after the arrests, O’Donnell, 61, created an online profile on Disqus — a Web-commenting tool — under the name “Knotty is a Tramp,” using a photo of Knott drinking from a bottle of whiskey taken from a social-media account.
O’Donnell’s attorney, Sean Ruppert, told PGN O’Donnell did not know Knott and was interested in the case from news reports she viewed. Ruppert said O’Donnell posted several-hundred comments on news items about Knott’s case in the ensuing months. In some, he said, she wrote as if she were Knott, which Ruppert contended was a joke.
“There were times she spoke in a parody of Kathryn Knott about stories about Kathryn Knott, and there were other topics in her own voice,” Ruppert said. “We feel it was very, very clearly parody. The name of the account, I think, is a pretty dead giveaway this was not the real person.”
Ruppert said his team is not releasing the comments yet but, when they do, “they’ll show she was making very obvious jokes about Ms. Knott.”
During a court hearing in which O’Donnell sought unemployment benefits after her termination, Ruppert said Bucks County detectives who testified said that Knott learned of the account and was “unhappy with it” and, according to the complaint, informed her father, who at the time was the Chalfont police chief and is now a captain in the Central Bucks Regional Police Department.
Heckler told PGN this week that he was told Karl Knott relayed the information to detectives about the Disqus profile and other incidents as a private citizen, and not as a member of the police force.
“My understanding is her father communicated to someone in the office, speaking as a citizen, that there was this site where someone purported to be his daughter’s emanations. It was also reported that, at their residence in Bucks County, they were receiving hate mail, death threats and some things of various menacing natures. That’s how the detectives’ attention was called to this ‘Knotty’” account, Heckler said.
On Aug. 6, 2015, Detectives Martin McDonough and Mark Zielinski visited Walker Parking Consultants in Wayne, where O’Donnell had worked for about two years as an administrative assistant. The filing says the detectives met privately with O’Donnell’s supervisor and informed him of her Disqus profile, contending O’Donnell had “assumed the identity” of Knott. The detectives also told the supervisor they had, through a court order, obtained the IP address of the devices O’Donnell used to comment, and one was a workplace computer.
Heckler said detectives came to O’Donnell’s work, as opposed to home, as there was the potential for more than one employee to have contributed to the account.
“All of this stuff is anonymous, so they had to go back to the Internet service provider and find out what computers were being used to transmit this information,” Heckler said. “There were two computers — one residential and one business computer — so there was an assumption it was [O’Donnell] when it was determined she does work at that location but there was a possibility there were a number of people doing this.”
O’Donnell was brought into the meeting and, according to the complaint, the detectives informed her she “would be arrested for ‘fraudulently impersonating Ms. Knott’” if she continued posting under the account.
O’Donnell says she told the detectives she would stop. Later that day, her supervisor fired her.
In her federal suit, O’Donnell charges that her Disqus username was speech protected by the First Amendment, and that the defendants violated her free-speech rights by restricting her ability to use the profile. She also contends the defendants conspired to violate her rights.
While it is not directly stated in the filing, O’Donnell’s co-counsel Martell Harris said they believe Karl Knott’s role in the Bucks County Police Department influenced the detectives’ actions.
“I would say that’s our working theory, given the relationship here and the ‘thin blue line,’” Harris said. “In our understanding, Karl Knott’s position would have given him access to be in contact with the other detectives. But the details will be fleshed out in discovery.”
Heckler told PGN he does not believe he has ever met Karl Knott and said his office investigated the case like it would any other.
“In speaking briefly with the detectives involved, I may never have laid eyes on this guy,” Heckler said. “If anybody comes to me and says, ‘I’m a parent of somebody who’s been charged with a hateful crime and now we’re getting bombarded with stuff at our house focused on her and also on us,’ my response would be the same. I don’t want criminal misconduct and don’t want anybody targeted in my jurisdiction.”
Heckler added that Karl Knott may have known the complaint-reporting process since he is a member of the police force, but said that did not affect the investigation.
“Does he know, by virtue of his position, to reach out to county detectives and make this complaint, whereas another regular citizen may not? That’s entirely possible. But in terms of how we evaluate a complaint, or what we’re inclined to do, [his position] does not make a bit of difference.”
As of presstime, it was unclear if the Knotts had retained counsel.
O’Donnell is seeking a jury trial. Once the complaint has been served to all the defendants, they will have 21 days to respond.
Knott was sentenced in February to five to 10 months for her role in the 2014 incident. She remains incarcerated at Riverside Correctional Facility. Williams and Harrigan took plea deals that include community service.