Vanessa Bryant has pledged the $16 million won from Los Angeles County in her lawsuit over her husband’s helicopter crash site photos.
The attorney of the late Kobe Bryant’s widow announced that Bryant plans to donate the money to the Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation, the nonprofit named in her husband and daughter Gianna’s memory, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The foundation, established by Kobe in 2016 and renamed after the crash in 2020, is dedicated to providing funding and sports programming to underserved athletes.
A jury awarded the $16 million to Bryant and an additional $15 million to Chris Chester, whose wife Sarah and daughter Payton also died in the crash, on Wednesday, ending a legal battle that had been in the works for two years.
During the trial, Bryant’s legal team alleged she had suffered emotional distress from several employees of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Fire Department sharing photos from the crash site, including pictures of the bodies of her husband and daughter.
The majority of the money came from the Sheriff’s Department, as the jury found the department had an established practice of sharing such photos.
Mrs Bryant’s husband Kobe Bryant, 41, daughter Gianna, 13, and six family friends died when their helicopter crashed in California in January 2020.
