Kathryn Knott, convicted in the September 11, 2014 gay bashing of two men in Centre City, Philadelphia, has been released from jail, Philly Mag reports:
“Miss Knott has been an exemplary inmate,” argued Center City attorney William Brennan, Knott's lawyer. “She completed anger management in a timely, quick fashion. And she elected not to appeal. That speaks volumes to her sincerity.”
In February, Knott was sentenced to five to 10 months in prison for her role in the attack on two gay men in Philadelphia in September 2014. Her minimum release date was July 8th. A report issued by the prison stated that Knott had no disciplinary issues and that her parents were “very involved” with her while she was in jail. The report also mentioned that Knott had been in contact with her boyfriend via telephone.
The prosecution did not object to Knott's parole, indicating that the victims had been notified and that they did not protest her release from jail, and Covington granted the release, effective immediately. A court clerk told Knott's parents that the processing would take less than three hours, meaning Knott will be walking out of the courthouse a free woman on Tuesday afternoon.
Knott refused a plea deal accepted by her co-assailants Kevin Harrigan and Philip Williams and is currently in the fourth month of her sentence. Earlier this year Knott requested that she be allowed to record a PSA instead of serving the five-to-10 month prison sentence she received. A judge rejected that request. Knott did not appeal the judge's ruling.
Knott is currently the subject of two lawsuits.
Kathleen O'Donnell of Norristown, Pennsylvania, a staffer at a consultant firm who created a blog to write about Knott and the homophobic mob attack and used the pen name ‘Knotty is a Tramp', was fired from her job after Bucks County district attorney detectives came to question her about the website at Walker Parking Consultants, where she worked in August 2015.
O'Donnell is suing Knott, her father Karl Knott (then-police chief of Chalfont, Bucks County), Bucks County, Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler and the two detectives Martin McDonough and Mark Zielinski, saying her free speech rights were violated. She seeks more than $150,000 in compensatory damages and more than $5 million in punitive damages.
In May, Zachary Hesse and Andrew Haught, the victims of theSeptember 2014 gay bashing in Philadelphia Center City filed a civil lawsuit against Harrigan, Knott, and Williams, who were charged in the attack.
