As shocked tributes poured in from fellow athletes, politicians and celebrities, Sonmez tweeted a link to a three-year-old article on The Daily Beast. "Kobe Bryant's Disturbing Rape Case: The DNA Evidence, the Accuser's Story, and the Half-Confession," she wrote, quoting the article's headline.
The story, originally published in April 2016 just before Bryant's final NBA game, revisited his 2003 arrest for the alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old hotel worker. The case was dropped in 2004 before going to trial and a civil case was settled out of court.
Sonmez's tweet drew widespread criticism and #FireFeliciaSonmez began trending on Twitter. "You're a terrible person," wrote author Mike Cernovich. "What kind of person just decides to post this now," said Daily Wire contributor Harry Khachatrian.
Comedian Bridget Phetasy wrote, "This is gross. A woman lost her husband and child today. Kids lost their father and sister. Children all over the world lost their hero. People are grieving. Maybe give it a day before you trample on the memories of the deceased."
Some on Twitter drew comparison to The Washington Post's coverage of the deaths of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian general Qassim Soleimani, who were respectively described by the newspaper as an "austere religious scholar" and a "revered military leader".
Sonmez defended her tweet in a number of follow-up posts and said she had received death threats, sharing a screenshot of her email inbox showing a number of threatening and expletive-laden messages from readers.
She urged the "10,000 people" who had commented and emailed her with "abuse and death threats" to "please take a moment and read the story". "Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality even if that public figure is beloved and that totality unsettling," she wrote.
"That folks are responding with rage and threats toward me (someone who didn't even write the piece but found it well-reported) speaks volumes about the pressure people come under to stay silent in these cases."
Journalist Matthew Keys said a Washington Post employee told him that Sonmez's managers didn't care about the Daily Beast tweet but were concerned about the screenshot of her email inbox creating legal issues and possibly violating Twitter's terms of service.
News site Vox reported a slightly different version of events, saying it had been told by a Washington Post employee that Sonmez "wasn't suspended because of one particular Bryant-related tweet but instead because of the totality of them".
Speaking the Washington Post's own blogger Erik Wemple, Sonmez gave her side of the story. She said she had emailed Grant and her editor Peter Wallsten on Sunday afternoon to inform them of the threats she had received.
"Tracy wrote back a couple of hours later asking me to take down those tweets," she said, adding Grant later told her if she didn't delete them she would be "in violation of a directive from a managing editor".
After checking into a hotel on Sunday night she had a phone call with Grant, who told her she was being placed on leave. Grant told her in an email that the tweets didn't "pertain" to her "coverage area" and that "your behaviour on social media is making it harder for others to do their work as Washington Post journalists".
On Monday, nearly 250 Washington Post employees signed a letter in support of Sonmez, saying the newspaper had failed to protect her in the face of abuse and that she had been forced to leave her home out of fear for her safety.
"Even now, after numerous conflicting reports have been published about Felicia's situation, The Post has failed to offer a clear explanation of why she was placed on leave — to Felicia or to anyone else," the letter said.
"We urge The Post to immediately provide Felicia with a security detail and take whatever other steps are necessary to ensure her safety, as it has done in the past when other reporters were subject to threats."
It added, "The company should issue a statement condemning abuse of its reporters, allow Felicia to return to work, rescind whatever sanctions have been imposed and provide her with any resources she may request as she navigates this traumatic experience."
