Vanessa Bryant, the widow of fallen NBA star Kobe Bryant, has sued the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department over unauthorized photos of Kobe's crash site allegedly taken and shared by deputies.

Vanessa Bryant's lawsuit accused L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva of attempting a cover-up when he went to the sheriff's substation that responded to the crash and told the deputies that if they delete the images that they had taken, they would not have to face discipline.

On January 26, the world was shocked when 41-year-old Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others, including the pilot.

The group was on their way to Bryant's sports facility in Thousand Oaks for a youth basketball tournament when the Sikorsky S-76 they were riding crashed into a hillside in Calabasas, northwest Los Angeles.

According to Vanessa Bryant, Villanueva had assured her that the deputies' crash site was being secured to protect her privacy.

However, an investigation conducted by the Los Angeles Times revealed that the deputies not only took photos of the crash site but also shared them. 

In the lawsuit, Bryant's widow claimed that the deputies, numbering to no less than eight, took photos of those who died using their personal cellphones. And that they did so for their own personal gratification.

Vanessa Bryant's lead attorney on the case, Luis Li, said that the lawsuit is about accountability and preventing the deputies' same disgraceful behavior from happening to other families in the future. 

Villanueva admitted that eight deputies took photos of the remains of Kobe Bryant as well as of the other victims at the crash site. And that he had ordered for the photos to be destroyed.

The sheriff also confirmed that at least one of the photos was shared outside of the department.

The lawsuit mentioned that a bartender had reported to the Sheriff's Department that he had witnessed one of the deputies showing the gruesome photos to a woman at a Norwalk bar.

The lawsuit also claimed that Villanueva's act of having the photos deleted instead of conducting an investigation was an attempt to cover-up the incident.

According to Vanessa Bryant's attorneys, Bryant's widow was distressed that no formal investigation was done until the story came out on the L.A. Times. 

According to the lawsuit, she feels ill just thinking of strangers gawking at the photos of Kobe and Gianna's remains.

She is living in fear that she or her children will be confronted by those photos online one of these days. 

Villanueva refused to comment on the allegations' specifics but did say that the actions the department took then were the right ones given the extraordinary circumstances.

He also added that the matter was handled correctly because standard investigative protocols did not exist in the case as there was no crime, no investigation, and no evidence.

Vanessa Bryant's lawsuit is seeking damages for negligence, invasion of her right to privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

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