Article content

Washington Post political reporter Felicia Sonmez has been suspended from her job after a series of tweets in the aftermath of the helicopter crash that killed basketball legend Kobe Bryant.

Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others perished Sunday morning in Calabasas, California.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Kobe Bryant death: Washington Post reporter suspended after tweeting link to article on sex assault case Back to video

Tweeting Sunday afternoon, Sonmez posted a link to a Daily Beast article which explored a 2003 allegation of sexual assault against Bryant. The article, written in 2016, is headlined: “Kobe Bryant’s Disturbing Rape Case: The DNA Evidence, the Accuser’s Story, and the Half-Confession.”

Social media users, some of them high profile, quickly went on the attack against Sonmez and the Post, saying that her posts were insensitive to the player’s death. The allegation she referred to, made by a hotel worker in Colorado, was never heard in criminal court but Bryant publicly apologized to his accuser and settled a civil complaint.