Vanessa Bryant receives $16 million after private photos of Kobe Bryant crash were shared.

Vanessa Bryant, the widow of NBA star Kobe Bryant, was awarded $16 million as part of a jury verdict against Los Angeles County for deputies and firefighters sharing unauthorized photos of the crash site where Bryant and their 13-year-old daughter, along with seven others, were killed in a helicopter crash in 2020. The $31 million verdict found that the photos severely invaded Bryant’s privacy and caused her emotional distress, and were shared mostly between employees of the LA County sheriff’s and fire departments. Another plaintiff, Chris Chester, whose wife and daughter were among the nine killed in the crash, was awarded $15 million. Bryant testified that the photos had exacerbated her still-raw grief, and she lives in fear of them being shared on social media. Officials who had the photos were ordered to delete them, and they had not been made public before the trial.