Vanessa Bryant gets $22m over leaked crash photos

LOS ANGELES • A jury awarded Vanessa Bryant US$16 million (S$22.2 million) on Wednesday in her lawsuit against Los Angeles County over the inappropriate sharing of photos of human remains from the helicopter crash that killed her husband Kobe and daughter Gianna, along with seven others.

Chris Chester, whose wife and daughter were among those killed in the crash and who joined the suit, was awarded US$15 million.

Vanessa, who wore a mask in court, clasped her hands around her head and began to weep as the verdict was read.

Jerry Jackson, Chester's lawyer, said he and the plaintiffs were grateful to the jury and Judge John F. Walter, "who gave us a very fair trial". Vanessa and her lawyers declined to comment after the verdict was read.

Mira Hashmall, the lead attorney for the county in the case, said in a statement that she and other members of the county's legal team disagreed with the verdict.

"We will be discussing next steps with our client," she said.

"Meanwhile, we hope the Bryant and Chester families continue to heal from their tragic loss."

Kobe Bryant, a five-time National Basketball Association (NBA) champion who played for the Los Angeles Lakers in his entire career, achieved a stature in Southern California that far transcended basketball.

On Wednesday, about 14 blocks from the courthouse, a new mural celebrating his legacy was unveiled to mark "Mamba Day", referring to his nickname.

The jury's decision, which ended a federal civil trial that lasted nearly two weeks, was an uncommonly high-profile rebuke of two colossal and insular agencies - the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department - that wield enormous power in the nation's second-biggest metropolis.

On a foggy Sunday morning in January 2020, Bryant, 41, and eight others were flying from Orange County to a youth basketball tournament in a suburb north of Los Angeles when the pilot became disoriented in the clouds.

The helicopter crashed into a hill near Calabasas, California and everyone on board was killed.

In those first hours after the crash, Vanessa alleged in her lawsuit, Los Angeles County firefighters and sheriff's deputies were allowed to take unnecessary close-up photos of human remains around the site, including the bodies of Kobe and Gianna, and the photos were then shared among sheriff's deputies and firefighters.

Vanessa testified in court that a few days after the emotional public memorial for her husband of almost two decades, she was told about a Los Angeles Times report that one of the deputies, Joey Cruz, had shown photos to a bartender and another bar patron, who filed a complaint with the Sheriff's Department.

"I felt like I wanted to run down the block and just scream," she testified. "But I couldn't escape. I can't escape my body."

Another woman, a relative of some of the crash victims, testified that a Fire Department official showed some of the photos at a gala where communications staff were receiving an award and later filed a complaint.

In the suit, Vanessa accused the county of negligence and of violating her constitutional right to privacy and, along with Chester, sought damages for emotional distress brought on by worrying that the photos could surface publicly on the Internet at any time.

The suit was an effort to hold officials to account for behaviour that their lawyers argued had "shocked the conscience".

NYTIMES