It was a heartbreaking trial. Vanessa BryantShe was emotional during the trial about photos of the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of her husband, Kobe Bryant and her daughter Gianna in January 2020.
In his August 2022 opening statements, Vanessa’s attorney Luis Li claimed that cell phone photos from the wreckage were shared by a deputy and fire captain “for a laugh,” and that there was no official reason for them to have been taken in the first place. “Jan. 26, 2020, was and always will be the worst day of Vanessa Bryant’s life,” he told the jury, according to the Associated Press. “They took and shared pictures of Kobe and Gianna as souvenirs. … They poured salt in an unhealable wound.”
The basketball legend, along his daughter, 13, and seven other passengers, died in the crash of the helicopter that crashed into a hillside near Calabasas.
Li alleged that on the day of the crash, first responders “walked around the wreckage and took pictures of broken bodies from the helicopter crash. They took close-ups on the limbs and burned flesh. It shocks the conscience.” He argued that the photos were then “shared repeatedly with people who had absolutely no reason to receive them.”
Per the APThe attorney then showed the clip to the client. Deputy Joey Cruz, one of the defendants, showing gruesome pictures of the crash and Kobe’s body to a bartender while out at a local bar. Vanessa cried silently in the courtroom as Li spoke.
In May 2020, the philanthropist filed a claim against the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department for allegedly sharing photos of the scene of the crash that killed Kobe and Gianna. Four months later, she filed a lawsuit alleging that eight sheriff’s deputies took pictures of the wreckage on their cell phones for their personal use. Court documents reveal that Vanessa claimed that she found out about the photos through a report in The Advocate. Los Angeles Times and then reached out to the Sheriff’s Office to ask about the situation and see if she should “brace for pictures of her loved ones’ remains to surface on the internet.”
The filing argues that “the Sheriff’s Department’s outrageous actions have caused Mrs. Bryant severe emotional distress and compounded the trauma of losing Kobe and Gianna. Ms. Bryant feels ill at the thought of strangers gawking at images of her deceased husband and child, and she lives in fear that she or her children will one day confront horrific images of their loved ones online.”
She is suing for unspecified damages due to emotional distress.
L.A. County lawyers argued in court that the case is without merit because the photos had never been made public. “It is undisputed that the complained-of photos have never been in the media, on the Internet, or otherwise publicly disseminated. Plaintiff Vanessa Bryant has never seen county photos of her family members,” the lawyers said, per the AP. “They’re not online. They’re not in the media. They’ve never even been seen by the plaintiffs themselves. … That is not an accident.”
Continue scrolling to see more photos and details about the trial.
