4 Lost Hills Deputies Accused Of Sharing Kobe Crash Photos

MALIBU, CA — A lawsuit filed by Vanessa Bryant accuses four Lost Hills deputies of sharing unauthorized photos taken at the site of the helicopter that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and seven others. Bryant is accusing Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell, and Raul Versales of taking and sharing photos for personal reasons, and is seeking damages for negligence and invasion of privacy.

LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said on Twitter that his department “will refrain from trying this case in the media and will wait for the appropriate venue. Our hearts go out to all the families affected by this tragedy.” County counsel had tried to prevent the names of the deputies from being shared, but a federal judge ruled last week that the names could be released.

The suit alleges that Lost Hills Deputy Rafael Mejia, who still works for the station, obtains “multiple photographs of the Bryants’ remains from fire department personnel taken at the scene of the January 2020 helicopter crash, and stored them in his cell phone. Mejia then allegedly sent photos with a female deputy, and then with Deputy Joey Cruz, who at the time was training for his current position as a deputy. Cruz then allegedly shared the photos with “multiple individuals without any legitimate governmental purpose, including several members of the public.”

The suit alleges that the unauthorized photo sharing continued. Cruz is accused of sharing the photos with Lost Hills Deputy Michael Russell, and later with his niece. He is also accused of making inappropriate remarks about the state of the bodies, and bragging about them to fellow patrons at the Baja California Bar and Grill in Norwalk. Cruz allegedly bragged about being at the scene of the accident, and is seen on bar camera footage zooming in and out of the the images while sharing them with the bartender.

The bartender then allegedly bragged to restaurant patrons that he had just seen a photo of Bryant’s body, which he described in “graphic detail.”

Deputy Raul Versales is accused of sending the photos to an LASD detective. According to the suit, the detective could not even name the person who sent them to him, because they were being so casually shared around the department.

The suit accuses Mejia, Cruz, Versales and Russel of destroying evidence by deleting the photos off of their phones once they learned that a complaint had been filed with the LASD for improper sharing of photos of victims’ remains.

Villanueva allegedly assured widow Vanessa Bryant that deputies were securing the crash site to ensure her privacy, when deputies were actually at the scene snapping photos of dead children and parents. “As the department would later admit, there was no investigative purpose for deputies to take pictures at the crash site,” the suit said. “Rather, the deputies took photos for their own personal purposes.

— City News Service and Michael Wittner contributed to this report.

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Bryant Crash: 'Bad Things Can Happen To Good Organizations' | Calabasas, CA Patch

Calabasas Marks Year Anniversary Of Kobe Bryant Crash | Calabasas, CA Patch

Kobe Bryant Probe: 1,700 Pages Of Documents Released | Calabasas, CA Patch