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Kobe Bryant’s widow has been awarded $16m (£13.6m) in damages over leaked graphic photos of the helicopter crash that killed the US basketball star and his daughter in 2020
Los Angeles, U.S. | Xinhua | A jury Wednesday ordered Los Angeles County to pay 31 million U.S. dollars in damages over first responders snapping and sharing gruesome photos of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and other victims killed in a 2020 helicopter crash, local media reported.
According to City News Service, a regional wire service covering Southern California, the jury awarded Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, 16 million dollars and co-plaintiff Chris Chester 15 million dollars. Chester’s wife and daughter also died in the crash.
Kobe and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine people killed in the crash amid foggy conditions in the hills above Calabasas in southern California on Jan. 26, 2020. The Los Angeles Lakers legend, five-time NBA champion and 18-time All-Star died at the age of 41.
Jurors in downtown Los Angeles reached their verdict after roughly four and a half hours of deliberations. Vanessa Bryant wept as the verdict was announced, City News Service reported.
The damages awarded to the plaintiffs cover past pain and suffering and future emotional damage. The report said the jury found that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department violated Bryant and Chester’s constitutional rights.
The plaintiffs argued that county personnel took graphic cell phone pictures of human remains at the remote Calabasas crash site for their own amusement as “souvenirs” while sharing them with other law enforcement personnel and members of the public, the report added.
The county has not disputed that some photos were shared with a small number of deputies and firefighters. Defense attorneys maintained that all images taken by first responders were destroyed on orders of the sheriff and fire chief and no longer existed in any form. The photos never entered the public domain or appeared on the internet, the county insisted, according to the report.
