The seemingly never-ending saga of the Amanda Knox murder case in Italy was front and center again Wednesday as she failed in her attempt to clear her name of her last remaining conviction.
This week, Knox returned to the European nation to overturn her 2009 conviction for slander after she fingered the wrong man as an accomplice in the slaying of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.
But, her efforts backfired because she was re-convicted on the slander charge in a Florence, Italy courtroom.
After the verdict was read, Knox broke down in tears while the judge imposed a 3-year prison term with time already served. In other words, Knox gets to go home to the good ol’ US of A.
But, her lawyer told NBC News that she was “very surprised at the outcome of the decision and Amanda is very upset.”
You may recall in 2007 … Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were originally charged with the fatal stabbing and sexual assault of Kercher inside a Perugia apartment about 100 miles north of Rome.
Prosecutors theorized the couple butchered Kercher and slit her throat during rough sex, creating lurid international headlines.
Knox and Sollecito were eventually convicted, and each was sentenced to over 20 years in Italian prisons.
The two spent the next 4 years behind bars, while the courts kept flip-flopping on their convictions. They were finally exonerated in 2015 by the country’s highest court – the Supreme Court of Cassation.
Still, Knox had to deal with a separate conviction for slander after she falsely accused a local bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, of participating in the Kercher homicide. Under police questioning, Knox made the accusation against Lumumba without an attorney present and a full understanding of the Italian language.
Meanwhile, in 2008, another suspect, Rudy Hermann Guede, was tied to the murder of Kercher through DNA and convicted of the heinous crime. He was handed a 16-year sentence but served 13 and was released in 2021.