Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, revealed portions of her lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff and Firefighters on Wednesday in a series of Instagram posts.
The 12 posts, which she shared with her 14.4 million followers, name the officers who allegedly shared photos of the helicopter crash scene in which her husband and 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died.
According to the case, she shared her initial concern for the privacy of the scene of the accident almost immediately with Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Despite assurances from Villanueva at the time, a subsequent investigation by LASD showed that one MP had taken between 25 and 100 photos on his personal phone – including some focused exclusively on the remains of the victims.
Many of these photos, the lawsuit alleges, were quickly shared via text messages and the AirDrop feature on the iPhone to other sheriff’s deputies who had nothing to do with the investigation.
Bryant highlighted the names of the officers – Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell and Raul Versales – with red markings on his original post. Earlier this month, she won a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department in LA County to have the names of the four deputies released.
Mejia is said to have stored photos from the crash site on her personal phone and shared them with others for no reason, “for no other reason than morbid gossip,” the lawsuit says.
Mejia is allegedly sent the photos to Cruz, a sheriff’s deputy intern, who shared Russell’s photos, showed them to a family member, and praised them to owners and bartenders at a sports bar in Norwalk, California, a few days later.
One of the bar owners, who heard the bartender describe the bloody details of the photos Cruz showed him, sent a complaint to the Sheriff’s Department later that night.
Russell allegedly saved the photos in an album on his personal phone and shared the photos with a friend who worked in another police station without involvement in the investigation.
Versales, a deputy sheriff’s deputy, allegedly obtained and shared photos from his personal phone on the day of the crash – including to Mejia – with unofficial people viewing them.
The lawsuit also alleges that several named officers made false statements about their possession and knowledge of the accident photos during the LASD investigation.
Almost 14 months have passed since January 26, 2020, when Kobe Bryant, Gianna and seven others were killed when the helicopter they were occupying crashed on a hill in Calabasas, California.