Woman guilty of anti-gay assault hopes to get off on a technicality
A woman who was found guilty of simple assault for an anti-gay beating hopes to get off on a technicality.
Kathryn Knott was found guilty of assault in the attack on a gay couple in Philadelphia last year.
However, the jury also acquitted Knott of four counts which included aggravated assault on each of the victims.
She was found guilty of simple assault and reckless endangerment.
Juror number four in the lineup has however admitted reading comments on Reddit about the trial while it was ongoing.
Ari Duenas, an army veteran, told press after the trial: “I’m a Redditer, so I’m always on there anyway… There were a lot of comments on there about the trial, some of them were kind of crazy.”
Later, Duenas used his Reddit username, ‘nedthedragonslayer’, to create an ‘Ask Me Anything’ thread on the site about the trial.
The legal team around Knott is looking into possibly using the admission as a way to get her off for the charges.
The team said the comments to the media and the Reddit thread could mean that the judge declares a mistrial.
Admitting that it would be a “tough row to hoe”, lead attorney Louis Busico said the team would be exploring other avenues.
A judge previously permitted anti-gay tweets sent by Knott to be used as evidence in her trial.
The tweets were revealed after Knott was accused of the attack, and include referring to gay couple kissing, saying “ew”, and “jazz flute is for little fairy boys”.
In other tweets she used the word “dyke”, referring to her own hair in a derogatory way and using the word gay as a negative.
Throughout the trial, Knott consistently denied that she was homophobic.
