LA Sheriff's Department under fire as trial set to start over Kobe Bryant crash photos
LOS ANGELES — They were caught sharing graphic photos they had stored on their phones of the helicopter crash that killed Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others.
Since then, nearly all of the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies involved in the scandal have gotten new phones.
The deputy who took the photos said he lost his in Las Vegas. The trainee who showed the images to a bartender wiped his phone of all its data. Others said they replaced their phones as part of routine upgrades. An L.A. County fire captain, meanwhile, was found by his employer to have intentionally deleted the images to cover up his role in the misconduct.
The failure to preserve the electronic evidence to ensure the photos didn't spread beyond those employees will
