Amanda Knox, 29, has revealed that she was friends with a “lesbian” during her time in an Italian prison that resulted in a disturbing instance of sexual assault. Amanda was locked up after being convicted for the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher and remained there until the verdict was overturned in 2015. In a new essay for Vice’s Broadly, Amanda revealed that three years into the four years she would serve, an inmate named Leny (name changed) who was a “small town drug dealer,” came up to her in the prison yard.
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“Leny told me about how, in Italy, she had experienced a lot of judgement and closed-mindedness,” Amanda wrote. “I sympathized. When I was 14, a rumor went around my Catholic high school that I was a lesbian, alienating me from everyone but a small group of my classmates. Later, I became an LGBTQ ally and helped found the Gay-Straight Alliance at my high school.”
Amanda said that upon hearing that, Leny “grinned ear-to-ear”. “Afterwards, she scampered, puppy-like, alongside me as I paced the exercise yard – the next day, and the day after that, and eventually every day.” Amanda said that the two went on to form an “almost” friendship, as other prisoners didn’t want to hang out with the “famous” Amanda who had lots of mail and visits from her family.
Amanda Knox — Pics
“At least initially, Leny might not have been trying to seduce me, and was actually just in need of someone kind to distract her from her loneliness,” Amanda wrote. But Leny then made it clear she wanted to be more than friends, trying to hold hands with Amanda and telling her, “I’ve changed women before.” Then, Leny want so far as to kiss Amanda against her will. “I gritted my teeth and half-smiled, wavering between embarrassment and anger,” Amanda wrote. “It was bad enough that the prison institution took ownership of my body ― that I was caged and strip-searched on a regular basis and had already been sexually harassed by male guards.”
Leny thought Amanda was “over-reacting” when she said that the inmate needed to respect her boundaries. Leny was released before Amanda and wrote her love letters stuffed inside CD jackets, but Amanda said she “never replied” to them.
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