![]() However, the widow contends the photos were also shared with attendees at an awards show party, a customer at a Norwalk bar, a city firefighter who was not a county employee, the niece of a sheriff’s deputy and a friend of another deputy. The county contends that Bryant’s claims of emotional distress are based on allegations deputies showed accident site photos to other first responders and to a bartender. Lawyers argued in court papers that she cannot have severe distress from crash photos she and the public have never seen. The legal fight between Bryant and the county intensified in previous weeks when county lawyers sought to have Bryant undergo a psychiatric examination in advance of the trial scheduled for February. Bryant into dropping her case to avoid her private therapy records being brandished in open court and reported on by media outlets.”īryant’s widow alleges she and her family suffered severe emotional distress after discovering that sheriff’s deputies snapped and shared gruesome photos of the helicopter crash scene. “We are gratified that the court has granted our motion for access to her medical records, as it is a standard request in lawsuits where a plaintiff demands millions of dollars for claims of emotional distress.”īut Bryant attorney Mari Saigal alleged in court papers that the defense effort to get the records “should be seen for what it is: an attempt to bully Mrs. Bryant suffered as a result of the tragic helicopter accident,” Miller said in a statement. “The county continues to have nothing but the deepest sympathy for the enormous grief Ms. Skip Miller, outside counsel for Los Angeles County, responded that the plaintiff’s request for medical records is standard in such suits. The county had asked for her records dating from January 2010. 29, but limited the coverage period from Jan. Magistrate Judge Charles Eick ordered Bryant and her therapist to produce the records by Nov. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)Įarlier Monday, the judge ruled that Bryant must turn over her mental health records, which attorneys for Los Angeles County contend are central to fighting her lawsuit alleging emotional distress caused by the sharing of crash photos among sheriff’s deputies and others. When a captain complained, the sheriff demoted him.” Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant (24) shoots against Boston Celtics’ Kevin Garnett (5) during the second quarter of Game 1 of the NBA basketball finals Thursday, June 5, 2008, in Boston. “That order was highly irregular - unprecedented in deputies’ experience - and out of the chain of command. ![]() “Yet that is exactly what Sheriff Villanueva himself ordered department personnel to do after the department received a citizen’s complaint that a sheriff’s deputy was showing photos of the crash site at a bar in Norwalk,” according to Bryant’s motion. 26, 2020, improperly destroyed cellphone photos at the direction of Villanueva, who knew he was required to preserve such potential evidence. Attorneys for Bryant are urging the judge to penalize the county for the alleged destruction of almost all evidence that deputies took and shared photos at the site.Īccording to Vanessa Bryant’s pretrial motion for sanctions, members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who were among first responders at the crash site on Jan.
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