Federal Judge Rules In Favor Of Vanessa Bryant

A federal judge in California has ruled that Vanessa Bryant can obtain the names of the deputies who shared unauthorized photos of the helicopter crash that killed her husband and daughter last year.

On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna Bryant, and seven others were killed when their helicopter crashed. An investigation revealed that some deputies took photos of the crash and of the victims, and shared the photos. As a result, Bryant sued the Los Angeles County and Sheriff’s Department, seeking damages for negligence and invasion of privacy.

The ruling means that the names and details from an internal affairs investigation of the deputies could be added to Bryant’s lawsuit against the county and the Sheriff’s Department. It essentially dismisses the Los Angeles counties’ attempt to hide the name of the deputies.

The judge wrote in his ruling that Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s “promise to publicly release the [internal affairs bureau] report after the conclusion of the investigation undermines Defendants’ purported concern in the disclosure of the limited excerpts at issue here.” The judge additionally said that the public has the right to know the truthfulness of police misconduct allegations.