Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, revealed in a series of Instagram posts Wednesday the names of four Los Angeles County Sherrif’s deputies who allegedly shared graphic photos of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, 13-year-old daughter Giannia and seven others.

The 12 posts on her Instagram page showed images of lawsuit documents she filed against the four deputies in question — Joey Cruz, Rafael Mejia, Michael Russell and Raul Versales — along with Los Angeles county, the sheriff’s department and the county fire department. Bryant shared the front page of the lawsuit that listed the defendant names in full, highlighted in red.

According to the suit, Bryant shared initial concerns of privacy about the case with Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Despite receiving assurance, an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shared that one deputy took between 25 and 100 photos on his personal cell phone, including shots of the victims’ remains.

Many of the photos spread within the Sheriff’s Department through Air Drop and text message to deputies who had no connection to the investigation, the suit alleges.

According to the case, Mejia is alleged to have stored photos from the crash in his personal phone and shared them with others. He’s also alleged to have sent the photos to Cruz, who then allegedly shared the photos with Russell. Russell is alleged to have showed them to a family member and also to patrons and a bartender at a sports bar in Norwalk, California, days later.

One of the patrons at the bar emailed a complaint to the Sheriff’s Department that evening saying they heard Russell describing the graphic photos.

The document states that Versales, a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department, allegedly shared the photos from his personal cell phone on the day of the crash to Mejia and a detective with no purpose to view them.

Bryant’s posting of the legal documents comes just after a judge dismissed efforts by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to keep the deputies’ name sealed in the lawsuit earlier this month.

— Aron Yohannes

ayohannes@oregonian.com; @aronyohannes