LOS ANGELES — The trial over Vanessa Bryant’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against Los Angeles County officials related to gruesome photos of Kobe Bryant’s fatal helicopter crash is set to begin on Wednesday.
In the lawsuit, Vanessa Bryant claimed that photos of the January 2020 crash were shared by county fire and sheriff’s department employees in settings irrelevant to the investigation, including at a bar. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in September 2020, seeks undisclosed damages, claiming civil rights violations, negligence, emotional distress and violation of privacy.
However, the county has argued that the “severe emotional and mental injuries” were not caused by the county or the photos, but by the fatal crash itself. The plaintiffs have not seen the crash site photos, which “were never publicly disseminated,” the county argued.
In March 2020, LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said all of those photos had been deleted and that eight sheriff’s deputies were facing administrative action.
The lawsuit comes more than two years after the retired NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. The passengers were heading from Orange County to the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks for a youth basketball game in which Bryant was to coach and Gianna and two others aboard were to play.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the helicopter pilot pushed the limits of bad weather flying rules, climbed into clouds, became disoriented about the helicopter’s position relative to the horizon and made a descending left turn into a cloud-obscured hillside.
Bryant played his entire professional career with the Los Angeles Lakers and won five NBA championships before his retirement in April 2016.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an invasion-of-privacy bill called the “Kobe Bryant Act” in September 2020 that makes it illegal for first responders to share photos of a dead person at a crime scene “for any purpose other than an official law enforcement purpose.” The misdemeanor crime is punishable by up to $1,000 per violation.
The-CNN-Wire
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