Damages in the amount of $16 million (£13.6 million) were given to Kobe Bryant’s widow for the release of graphic images of the helicopter crash that killed the US basketball star and his daughter in 2020.
Vanessa Bryant, age 40, reported having panic attacks after learning that pictures captured by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and firefighters were distributed.
A federal jury has ruled that Mrs. Bryant is entitled to compensation for emotional suffering.
Christopher Chester will receive $15 million.
In January 2020, the helicopter of Mrs. Bryant’s husband, Kobe Bryant, 41, and their daughter, Gianna, 13, together with six family friends, crashed in California. In the accident, Mr. Chester lost his wife Sarah and daughter Payton.
The families of the dead are outraged by a Los Angeles Times report that claims county personnel snapped photographs at the crash site and shared them with others.
In November 2012, the county agreed to pay $2.5 million (£2.1 million) for the mental pain given to two families who lost loved ones in the crash, but Mrs. Bryant refused to settle.
Mrs. Bryant, sobbing on the witness stand last week, recalled reading the LA Times article while at home with her other children.
“I rushed out of the house and around the side so the girls could not see me. I wanted to go… down the street and yell “She stated,
Mrs. Bryant added that she was “blindsided, devastated, hurt, and betrayed” by the news of the leak and that she “lives in daily fear of these photographs appearing on social media.”
She stated, “I never want to see these images.” “I wish to remember my husband and daughter in their former states.”
At the trial, jurors heard that sheriff’s deputies and firefighters took graphic cell phone images at the accident scene and displayed them to others, including in a bar and at a gala.
The conduct of these employees “poured salt on an existing wound and rubbed it in,” Mrs. Bryant’s attorney Luis Li said in opening arguments last week.
A lawyer for the county argued in vain that “site photography is vital” and that the photographs had not been made publicly available.
Bryant, a five-time NBA champion, spent his entire career with the Los Angeles Lakers and is regarded as one of the game’s greatest players.
