Hollywood Actress Amber Heard filed a new petition for fresh trial against Ex-Husband Johnny Deep. Five months after the court revealed the verdict in the shocking defamation lawsuit against her ex-husband Johnny Depp, Amber Heard petitioned for a fresh trial.
According to The New York Times, the Aquaman actor argued that the six-week trial was held in the incorrect state. Hollywood actress Amber Heard’s attorneys have protested the jury’s decision to omit other pieces of evidence, including contemporaneous therapist, notes that they claim document allegations of abuse, in a 68-page appeal.
The actor’s legal team has requested that the judge overturn the jury’s decision, which largely sided with Depp and gave him a $10 million damage award.
Heard urged that the allegations brought by the Pirates of the Caribbean actor be either dismissed or given a fresh trial.
In their 68-page appeal, Ms. Heard’s lawyers lodged an array of legal objections, arguing that the trial was held in the wrong state and taking issue with the judge’s decision to exclude certain pieces of evidence, including contemporaneous notes from therapists that they say document allegations of abuse. They asked for the jury’s verdict to be reversed, either with a dismissal of Mr. Depp’s claims or a new trial entirely.
“The trial court improperly prevented the jury from considering several separate instances in which Heard reported Depp’s abuse to a medical professional,” the lawyers wrote.
Mr. Depp’s legal team has also appealed part of the verdict — the jury awarded Ms. Heard $2 million in damages, agreeing that a lawyer for Mr. Depp defamed her in comments to a newspaper — while otherwise declaring victory.
“The jury’s emphatic favorable verdict on all three defamatory statements alleged in his complaint fully vindicated Mr. Depp and restored his reputation,” Mr. Depp’s lawyers wrote in their court filing, which was submitted to the Court of Appeals of Virginia this fall.
During the trial, Mr. Depp’s fans flooded the courthouse to support him. Now, six months later, there are signals that he is again being embraced by some in the entertainment world.
Last month, he had a cameo in a streamed fashion show for Rihanna’s lingerie line, Savage x Fenty, in which he swaggered for the camera in loungewear as dancers flanked him. During MTV’s Video Music Awards, his face was digitally superimposed onto the body of the network’s moon man mascot, and he jokingly offered his services for weddings and bar mitzvahs, quipping, “I needed the work.”
“It’s pretty clear that Johnny Depp is back,” said Evan Nierman, a public relations executive. Even if Ms. Heard prevails on appeal, he said, “the public has already moved on.”
Still, it is unclear whether major Hollywood studios will be willing to back Depp, who for decades was a coveted leading man. In addition to his starring role as Jack Sparrow in five “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, he received Oscar nominations for “Sweeney Todd” and “Finding Neverland.”
Mr. Depp’s appeal contends that Ms. Heard’s victory on one of three claims in her countersuit should not stand, arguing that Mr. Depp was not responsible for statements made by his lawyer at the time. In comments to The Daily Mail, the lawyer, Adam Waldman, had accused Ms. Heard of damaging the couple’s penthouse and blaming it on Mr. Depp.
“If clients cannot control the details of their attorneys’ work, it makes little sense that clients should nonetheless be held accountable for their attorneys’ tortious actions,” Mr. Depp’s current lawyers wrote.
A panel of judges will decide on both appeals, after which either side can seek to revive its claims once more in the Virginia Supreme Court.
