Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, on Wednesday unveiled portions of her lawsuit against the Sheriff’s and Fire Department of Los Angeles County.
The 12 posts, which she shared with her 14.4 million followers, name the officers who allegedly shared photos of the helicopter crash scene where her husband and 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died.
According to the case, she shared her initial concern about the privacy of the accident almost immediately with Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Despite the assurance given by Villanueva at the time, a subsequent investigation by the LASD showed that one deputy took between 25 and 100 photos on his personal cell phone, some of which were aimed only at the remains of the victims.
Many of the photos are reportedly being quickly shared via text message and the AirDrop feature on iPhones to other deputies in the Sheriff’s Department who had nothing to do with the investigation.
Bryant highlights the names of the officers – Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell and Raul Versales – with red marks on her initial post. Earlier this month, she won a case against the LA County Sheriff for releasing the names of the four deputies.
Mejia allegedly stored photos of the accident on his personal phone and shared it unsolicited with others ‘for no other reason than morbid gossip stories’, the lawsuit reads.
It is also alleged that Mejia sent the photos to Cruz, a trainee deputy at the Sheriff’s Department, who shared the photos with Russell, showed them to a family member and also proudly shared them with customers and the bartender at ‘ displayed a sports bar in Norwalk. California, a few days later.
One of the customers at the bar, who heard the bartender describe the bloody details of the photos Cruz showed him, sent a complaint to the sheriff later that evening.
Russell allegedly stored the photos in an album on his personal cell phone and shared the photos with a friend who worked at another police station, without involvement in the investigation.
Versales, a deputy at the Sheriff’s Department, allegedly obtained photos from his personal cell phone on the day of the accident and shared them with individuals with no official purpose to see them.
In the case, it is also alleged that several of the said officers made false statements during the LASD investigation about their possession and knowledge of the accident photos.
It’s almost 14 months since January 26, 2020, when Kobe Bryant, Gianna and seven others died when the helicopter they were occupying crashed on a hill in Calabasas, California.