Amanda Knox Gets 4 Million Dollar Book Deal
Photo by RadarOnline
NEWS.COM.AU:
AMANDA Knox, the young exchange student whose conviction and eventual acquittal of murder charges made headlines worldwide, has a book deal.
Knox has an agreement with HarperCollins to tell her story.
The 24-year-old Seattle resident, imprisoned for four years in Perugia, Italy, has not publicly discussed her ordeal beyond a brief expression of gratitude upon her release in October last year.
“Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system,” HarperCollins said today.
“Aided by journals she kept during her imprisonment, Knox will talk about her harrowing experience at the hands of the Italian police and later prison guards and inmates.
“She will reveal never before-told details surrounding her case, and describe how she used her inner strength and strong family ties to cope with the most challenging time of her young life.”
The book, currently untitled, is tentatively scheduled for early next year.
Financial terms were not disclosed for what is surely a seven-figure deal, negotiated on Knox’s behalf by Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, whose other clients include President Barack Obama and former president George W Bush.
Some 20 publishers were interested in the book and Knox met with seven, all of whom submitted bids during a recent auction.
HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said Knox, who studied creative writing, would work with a collaborator.
Her editor will be Claire Wachtel, whose other authors have included crime novelist Dennis Lehane, journalist Cokie Roberts and US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
Publishers in recent years have shied from controversial defendants, especially since the fiasco of OJ Simpson’s If I Did It, the fictionalised account of Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder that was cancelled in 2006 by HarperCollins in response to public outrage.
After Casey Anthony was found not guilty last year in the death of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, several publishers said they would not even consider a book by her.
Knox’s legal issues are not over. Earlier this week, Italian prosecutors asked the country’s highest criminal court to reinstate the murder convictions of Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
Prosecutor Giovanni Galati said he is “very convinced” that Sollecito and Knox were responsible for the November 1, 2007, stabbing death of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British student who shared an apartment with Knox in Perugia.
Police and the prosecution had alleged the murder was part of a bizarre psycho-sexual game gone wrong.
Ms Kercher was found in a pool of blood. The appeals court in October said the guilty verdicts against the pair were not corroborated by any evidence, and that the court hadn’t proven they were in the house when Ms Kercher was killed.
A third defendant, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Ms Kercher.
His 16-year sentence, reduced in appeal from an initial 30 years, was upheld by Italy’s highest court in 2010.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for Knox recently filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy. The same court that overturned her murder conviction upheld the charges for slander – for falsely accusing bar owner Diya “Patrick” Lumumba of involvement in the slaying.
Mr Lumumba was freed after two weeks in prison for lack of evidence.
Knox later said she was “manipulated” during her lengthy police interrogation. An Italian judge set Knox’s sentence for slander at three years, less than the time she spent in prison. That meant she could leave Italy and return to Seattle
NEWS SOURCE: ARTICLE BY NEWS.COM.AU BY From correspondents in New York From: AP February 17, 2012 10:42A
tRIAL
AK was found guilty of slander (and released on that charge for time served). I am keeping in mind that had her boss not been able to prove his alibi, he may have been sentenced to life in prison…because of AK’s lies. That is both very serious and very wrong.
On that basis alone, I don’t think she deserves to be financially rewarded…no matter how she intends to “excuse” that away.
I apologize if my opinion offends anyone, that is not my intent. I say so very respectfully.
2loyalty –
WOW, I did not know that. Like I said, I followed the story (mainly what I heard on TV morning news while getting dressed for work) and no where near how closely I read and researched Caylee’s murder.
Hmmmmmmmm, me thinks there is more to AK’s S-T-O-R-Y than I care to know. I am dismayed that Krazey walked away from a murder conviction and that Meredith’s “murderer” got something like 15 or 16 years??? Where’s the justice in that. That young girl had her entire life ahead of her and Guede got a mere slap on the wrist.
Hey Moo…
I’m not as aware of AK’s case as I am of KC’s either. But from what I have read (and I always take the media reports with a fistful of salt) I just feel there is a lot more to this story than will brought out in an AK’s cash windfall version of what happened.
Again, the only way I would be convinced of her “innocence” is if she were to volunteer for a polygraph.
Guede was originally sentenced to 30 years, but it was reduced to 16 years on appeal. His lawyer is seeking a re-trial.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15162243
Do any of you know why Amanda HAD to tell the lie about her boss?
Look, this is the way I see it. I respect peoples opinions (same or differing) when a person can back their opinions with facts; not emotion.
Here is a site that does a good job in providing professional opinions, documents and transcripts about Amanda’s’ interrogation and other topics of Meredith’s case.
(If you listen to the you tube video that’s embedded; it says a lot. I can’t imagine my daughter going through something like that.)
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/TheInterrogation.html
Ooops………….here’s the site.
The part that really convinced me that Amanda was framed by the prosecutor was the fact that the so called murder weapon, the prosecution said had Meredith’s DNA on the blade, wasn’t even blood at all it was Rye Bread.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/amanda-knox-trial-dad-summations-couldnt/story?id=14631227
Why is Amanda not seeking punitive damages from the Italian government/police for wrongful imprisonment? Is that an option available to her?
Didn’t Dee or someone post yesterday a more recent report that Meredith’s parents still believe that Amanda was involved? I would think that Meredith’s parents have more inside info than we know. It would be exactly like Casey’s trial because there was so much info that did not come out during the trial.
Sarah
February 22, 2012 – 3:29 pm
http://www.injusticeinperugia.org/TheInterrogation.html
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Thanks Sarah, this really says it all. Just thjnk if that were you, or your daughter, being interrogated that way. Horrors! I can’t wait for Amanda’s book to come out to expose all this, and a movie too. She’s deserves every penny.
Sarah @ 3:28 pm
Do any of you know why Amanda HAD to tell the lie about her boss?
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I read the link, thank you for posting. Just have to ask what if the lie she HAD to tell had sent him to jail for life?
This falsely accused man was/is also someone’s son (perhaps husband and father…I don’t know). Perhaps she will explain that in her book and see fit to donating some of her windfall to him?
2loyalty
February 22, 2012 – 5:38 pm
Sarah @ 3:28 pm
Do any of you know why Amanda HAD to tell the lie about her boss?
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I read the link, thank you for posting. Just have to ask what if the lie she HAD to tell had sent him to jail for life?
This falsely accused man was/is also someone’s son (perhaps husband and father…I don’t know). Perhaps she will explain that in her book and see fit to donating some of her windfall to him?
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The Prosecutor kept on and on until he forced Amanda to accuse him. He didn’t care that any of these people had families that cared about them. All he wanted to do was make a name for himself and this isn’t the first time he made wild exaggerations.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. I don’t know what kind of interrogation she was subjected to and quite frankly don’t care. Yes, everyone has their breaking point and obviously she had hers.
And for all of you pro-AK folks (I’m not for or against her) all I can say is the only people that really know what happened that night are AK, her bf, and Geude. You can go to a multitude of websites (pro and con) and make an argument for guilty and innocent. If she were suing the Italian government for malicious prosecution and/or false imprisonment, I would believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was innocent. However, no such movement has occurred.
As far as her parent’s incurring expense on her behalf, they aren’t the only parents in the USA that have incurred debt when their offspring was jailed in a foreign country. That’s just what parents DO out of love for their child when $hit happens.
dancehappy February 22, 2012@ 6:37 pm
can’t wait til you’re interrogated like that 2loyalty and see what you would do
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Well I hope that neither myself or a loved one would find ourselves in such a dire situation. I certainly wouldn’t wish that on you or anyone else either.
When you choose to live in a foreign country, there is always that remote chance that you will find yourself in trouble with their laws and subjected to the manners in which they treat criminal suspects.
I do wish AK would volunteer for a qualified polygraph prior to writing her story. I realize how adamant you feel about her innocence and I respect your opinion.
I truly wish I could feel as convinced as you are, but as of now, I can’t.
2loyalty –
Bravo
ITA and it’s hard for me to have a qualified opinion when I haven’t kept abreast of all of the details. I concur a polygraph would go a L-O-N-G way towards convincing me she comes to the table with clean hands.