Kobe Bryant’s Widow Awarded Nearly $29 Million After Police Share Photos Of Helicopter Crash | US News

Kobe Bryant’s family has reached a settlement for nearly $29m (£24m) after police shared graphic images of the basketball star’s fatal helicopter crash.

Bryant and his daughter Gianna died along with seven others when theirs helicopter crashed near Los Angeles in 2020.

Deputies and firefighters took and shared macabre photos of the remains of Bryant and 13-year-old Gianna.

Bryant’s widow Vanessa will now receive $28.5 million from Los Angeles County, which includes the $16 million was awarded to her by a jury after a trial over the leaked photos last year.

At trial, Ms. Bryant testified that news of the photos aggravated her grief after losing her husband and daughter.

She said she wanted to start mourning the loss of her husband and daughter but was faced with a “new horror” after learning of the leaked photos a month after the incident.

“I felt like I wanted to run and run down the block and scream,” she said. “It was like the feeling of wanting to run off a pier and jump into the water.

“The problem is, I can’t escape. I can’t escape from my body.”

Kobe Bryant with daughter Gianna, wife Vanessa and daughter Natalia at a basketball game in Los Angeles in 2017. Photo: AP
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Kobe Bryant with Gianna, his wife Vanessa and daughter Natalia at a basketball game in 2017. Photo: AP

To know more:
Kobe Bryant’s widow was “blinded” by leaked photos of the incident
Vanessa Bryant learned of Kobe’s death through online tributes

The court was told a sheriff’s deputy shared photos of Bryant’s body with a bartender while he was drinking and that firefighters circulated them among themselves at a banquet.

In March 2021, Ms. Bryant shared the names of four sheriff’s deputies she said distributed “free photos of the dead children, parents and coaches.”

Vanessa Bryant, second from left, the widow of the late Kobe Bryant, and friend Sydney Leroux, right, leave a federal courthouse in Los Angeles on Friday, August 19, 2022. Vanessa Bryant testified on Friday that she was only beginning to mourn the loss of her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter Gianna when she was faced with the new horror of learning that sheriff's deputies and firefighters had shot and shared photos of their bodies at the scene of the accident helicopter crash that killed them.  (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
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Vanessa Bryant, left, received $16 million for photos in a jury trial last year

He claimed the photos were taken and shared “for no reason other than morbid gossip”.

California has since passed a state law banning emergency responders from taking unauthorized photos of people dying at the scene of an accident or crime.

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