LA County Settles with Vanessa Bryant for $29M after Racist Suspect Cops and Firefighters Shared Gruesome Photos of Kobe Bryant and his Daughter's Severed Bodies and Remains for Their Amusement

From [HERE] Los Angeles County agreed to settle all remaining claims with Vanessa Bryant over graphic photographs shared by first responders to the helicopter crash that killed her husband, Kobe Bryant, their daughter Gianna, and seven others. The nearly $29 million settlement includes the $15 million awarded to Bryant by a federal jury in August 2022, Los Angeles County attorney Mira Hashmall said in a statement.

Throughout the 11-day trial in federal court in Los Angeles, lawyers for Bryant and Chester documented how the photos spread: They were flashed from a sheriff’s deputy’s phone screen to a bartender in Norwalk. They were shown to firefighters and their spouses during an awards gala at a hotel in Universal City in what amounted, one witness said, to a “party trick.” They were passed from one deputy to another as the pair played video games.

Attorneys for Bryant and Chester argued that it is unknown how far the imagesspread because the county did not thoroughly investigate. It wasn’t until most of the involved deputies had received new phones that officials hired a firm to conduct a forensic examination of employee devices. 

“The truth is, the county has no idea, no idea who had the photos and who they sent them to,” Lavoie said. 

The laptop of one fire captain who took photos, Lavoie said, was missing its hard drive when it was examined. The captain, Brian Jordan, who has since retired, claimed under oath that he did not remember being at the crash site at all.

The phone of Joey Cruz, a deputy who showed graphic photos to a bartender in Norwalk, had been reset before it was turned over to the firm, Lavoie said. When it was turned on, it was as if it was new, with no photos saved. County attorneys argued that Cruz had transferred his data to his new phone, which also had no crash photos saved on it.

And the identity of at least one firefighter who received the photos remains unknown.