After weeks of controversial testimony, witnesses, experts, and cross-examination, the Virginia jury in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation lawsuit finally reached a verdict.
According to Court TV , the jury is made up of five men and two women, with another woman and a man as substitutes; appear to be between the ages of 15 and one that could be older than 60 years.
They had to reach a unanimous decision. They deliberated for a few 12 hours over three days and it was determined that Amber Heard defamed Johnny Depp. The actress must compensate Depp with $15 million in damages.
Johnny had “pre-scheduled work commitments prior to trial” and would be observing the verdict from the UK. Meanwhile, Heard was present in the courtroom in Fairfax.
The verdict could now help Depp rehabilitate his image, at least that is his hope, after a televised trial that became in a vicious marriage show.
Depp sued Heard for an opinion piece she wrote in 2018 in The Washington Post in which she referred to herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse.
While Depp was not named in the article, he claimed that his allegations made it difficult for him to land movie roles.
The trial began last April 12 and throughout the case, jurors listened to recordings of the couple’s fights and viewed graphic photographs of Depp’s bloody finger. The actor said the top of his finger was cut off when Heard threw a bottle of vodka at him at 2015.
However, Depp’s lawyers focused their final intervention on the need for the protagonist of “Pirates of the Caribbean” to recover the “lost honor” and left aside the economic issue.
“Before Amber Heard no woman said that Depp put his hand on her 58 years”, insisted lawyer Benjamin Chew, who maintained that his client admits to having drug addiction problems, but pointed out that “there is a difference abysmal between having substance abuse problems and being a physical abuser”.
“Depp was canceled because Heard falsely accused him of domestic violence”, he concluded.
More Johnny’s other lawyer, Camille Vasquez, went far, assuring that there was “a victim of domestic violence” in court and it was not “Miss Heard”.
To substantiate this assertion, Vasquez replayed a series of audio recordings of the couple’s past discussions and in which the actress is heard apologizing.
Follow reading: Amber Heard could go to jail if she is confirmed to have perjured
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