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Prison officials tricked the U.S. student by lying to her about a medical condition.
Her return to the public was no more than a trip to a store for toothpaste & a chocolate bar, but it was a deliciously simple act that had been denied her during her four years in an Italian prison.
Ironically, one of her last acts in prison was the inmate ritual of snapping her toothbrush & carrying it outside the walls of Capanne prison before throwing it away.
Knox's foray into the public comes as more details of her prison ordeal emerge, specifically how she was sexually harassed.
Knox's younger sister Deanna told ABC News that she saw the remnants of the harassment firsthand while visiting her sister in prison.
"There was something right in front of me & so I put my arm over it," Deanna Knox said.
Deanna Knox said she covered up scribbled words that read "Amanda is a whore."
On one occasion, a male guard reportedly entered Knox's cell alone, despite a policy against it, & made sexual remarks, ABC News has confirmed. On another occasion, a high ranking prison official allegedly ordered Knox into his office at night & wanted to talk about sex.
Amanda Knox Was Sexually Harassed in Prison
"I think the Italian courts...the first time around practically made sure that Amanda was going to be harassed in prison since they made her sex life so much of a focus of the first trial, " said Vanity Fair's Judy Bachrach who has covered the case extensively.
Shortly after her arrest, prison officials tricked Knox, falsely telling her that her medical check-up revealed that she was HIV positive & asked her for a list of lovers for health reasons. The list that a distraught Knox provided to officials was soon leaked & became headlines in tabloid newspapers.
"Please oh please," she wrote in her prison diary at the time. "Let it not be true. I don't want to die."
ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams said that Knox could have the basis for a lawsuit but filing one would require a return to Italy.
Knox, 24, was released from prison earlier this month when she & her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 27, successfully appealed their murder conviction. They had been accused of murdering Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher in a cottage the two women shared in Perugia, Italy.
Sollecito has not spoken publicly since his release but his father told the press that his son is getting used to being at home.
"It's as if he has been reborn & he is getting used to the simple things in life again, things that he has not been able to do for four years & this will take some time," said Francesco Sollecito.
Meanwhile, a juror who overturned Knox's conviction told Italy's state-run RAI television that he has no doubt that Knox & Sollecito are innocent.
"I saw the faces of these two kids, & they couldn't bluff. They didn't bluff. My point of view is that these kids weren't guilty. They weren't there," said Mauro Chialli.
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