Felicia Sonmez posted a link to a 2016 Daily Beast report headlined “Kobe Bryant’s Disturbing Rape Case” as the world was coming to terms with the basketball legend’s death in Sunday’s fiery chopper crash in California.
Her since-deleted tweet sparked huge outrage — with Sonmez saying that “10,000 people” had commented and “emailed me with abuse and death threats,” according to the Daily Mail.
“Well, THAT was eye-opening,” she wrote about the barrage of hate mail, stressing that she was not connected with the article she tweeted, screenshots of the messages show.
She sent another tweet detailing some of the harassment — one of which included a screenshot of her work email highlighting the abuse she was getting, according to the reports.
Washington Post managing editor Tracy Grant confirmed to the Daily Mail that the political reporter was “placed on administrative leave” while the paper reviewed whether her Bryant tweets “violated The Post newsroom’s social media policy.”
“The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues,” Grant told the news site.
Sonmez deleted the offending messages and has yet to address her suspension.