The jury, after a six-week trial offering claims and counterclaims of domestic abuse, offered Johnny Depp $10.35 million in damages.
Actress Amber Heard is unable to pay her ex-husband Johnny Depp more than $10 million in damages, her legal professional said Thursday, after a US jury took the aspect of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” megastar in a bitter defamation trial.
The high-profile televised court war ended Wednesday whilst a seven-man or woman jury determined that Depp and Heard had defamed every different, however weighed in some distance more strongly with Depp.
The jury, after a six-week trial offering claims and counterclaims of domestic abuse, offered him $10.35 million in damages, in assessment with $2 million presented to Heard.
Asked on NBC’s TODAY display if Heard can be capable of pay up, her attorney Elaine Bredehoft said: “Oh no, without a doubt no longer.”
She brought that the “Aquaman” famous person desires to appeal the verdict and “has a few outstanding grounds for it.”
The fifty eight-12 months-antique Depp, who misplaced a libel case towards the British tabloid The Sun in London in 2020 for calling him a “wife-beater,” celebrated the break up verdict within the case as a victory at the same time as Heard stated she became “heart-broken.”
Depp sued Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing home abuse.”
The Texas-born Heard did now not call Depp in the piece, but he sued her for implying he changed into a domestic abuser and sought $50 million in damages.
The 36-yr-vintage Heard countersued for $a hundred million, saying she become defamed by means of statements made by Depp’s attorney, Adam Waldman, who told the Daily Mail her abuse claims had been a “hoax.”
‘Horrible message’
Bredehoft stated Depp’s legal group labored to “demonize” Heard and suppressed essential evidence in the trial, stopping the jurors from examining evidence of Depp’s alleged abuse.
“A range of things had been allowed in this court that need to not have been allowed, and it induced the jury to be harassed,” she stated.
“We had an sizeable amount of proof that become suppressed in this example that turned into in the UK case,” she stated. “In the United Kingdom case when it got here in, Amber received, Mr. Depp misplaced.”
The legal professional stated the ruling bodes unwell for the MeToo movement and could discourage women from reporting sexual harassment and abuse.
“It’s a terrible message,” Bredehoft stated. “It’s a sizable setback, because it’s exactly what it means.
“Unless you pull out your telephone and also you video your partner or your vast other beating you, efficiently you may not be believed.”
Bredehoft become requested by using TODAY approximately Heard’s immediate reaction to the decision in the trial, which passed off in Fairfax County Circuit Court near the United States capital.
“One of the first matters she stated is that, ‘I am so sorry to all those girls available,'” she stated. “This is a setback for all women in and outside the courtroom, and she or he feels the load of that.”
‘Zoo’
In a announcement, Heard said “the disappointment I sense these days is past words.
“I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still became no longer enough to stand up to the disproportionate energy, influence, and sway of my ex-husband,” she stated.
For his part, Depp welcomed the verdict, saying “The jury gave me my lifestyles lower back.”
“The exceptional is yet to come back and a brand new bankruptcy has subsequently started,” Depp stated in a declaration.
Bredehoft stated social media may also have had an impact on the case even though jurors were informed now not to have a look at it.
“There’s no way they couldn’t had been stimulated by way of it, and it became horrible,” she said. “It in reality, clearly become lopsided.”
Heard’s lawyer additionally stated she antagonistic having the trial televised.
“I become against cameras in the court docket, and I went on file with that and had argued against it due to the sensitive nature of this, however it made it a zoo,” she stated.