Kobe Bryant's widow awarded $16m leaked crash photos payout

Image source, Getty Images

Kobe Bryant's widow has been awarded $16 million in damages over leaked photos of the helicopter crash that killed the US basketball star and his daughter.

After learning that images taken by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and firefighters had been uploaded onto the internet, she had panic attacks.

A jury ordered the county to pay Mrs Bryant.

The co-plaintiff will be paid fifteen million dollars.

Kobe Bryant, his wife, daughter, and six family friends were killed in a helicopter crash in California in January 2020. Sarah and her daughter were killed in the crash.

The families of the people killed in the crash were enraged by a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Mrs Bryant refused to accept the county's offer to pay over the emotional distress caused to two families.

When Mrs Bryant read the LA Times story, she cried on the witness stand.

I ran to the side of the house to prevent the girls from seeing me. She wanted to run and scream.

Mrs Bryant said she was "blindsided, devastated, hurt and betrayed" by the news of the leak.

She doesn't want to look at the photographs. My husband and daughter were the same.

At the trial, jurors were shown gruesome cell phone photos taken at the accident site and shown to others, including at a bar.

Luis Li, Mrs Bryant's lawyer, said during opening statements last week that the employees rubbed salt in the wound.

A lawyer for the county tried to argue that the photos had not been posted publicly.

Bryant was a five-time NBA champion and is considered one of the greatest players in the game's history.