An attorney for the widow of Kobe Bryant filed documents in federal court Thursday that previewed her scheduled trial next month against Los Angeles County, including the witnesses she plans to call in a case about photos of her dead husband and daughter from a helicopter crash in January 2020.
Vanessa Bryant’s witness list includes Bryant herself, Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, Pelinka’s wife Kristin, L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, Kobe Bryant’s sister Sharia Washington and Catherine Gasol, wife of Kobe Bryant’s former Lakers teammate Pau Gasol.
The trial scheduled for Feb. 22 is expected to last about 15 days and could include around 40 witnesses for Bryant alone, according to the documents. The case is "considerably more complex than anticipated" when it once was set for a three-day trial, according a statement filed by her attorney, Luis Li.
Bryant is suing the county for invasion of privacy and negligence, accusing county sheriff’s and fire department employees of improperly taking and sharing photos of human remains from the crash that killed nine, including the NBA legend and their daughter.
Pretrial evidence discovery "has shown that the close-up photos of Gianna and Kobe’s remains were passed around on at least twenty-eight Sheriff’s Department devices and by at least a dozen firefighters, and shown off in bars and at an awards gala," according to the statement from Li. "It has also shown that (county) Defendants engaged in a coverup, destroying the direct forensic evidence of their misconduct and requiring extensive circumstantial evidence to establish the full extent of that misconduct."
