Johnny Depp Wins a War of Credibility Against Amber Heard
variety.comGene Maddaus Senior Media WriterIn his opening statement, Amber Heard’s attorney warned jurors that Johnny Depp’s lawyers were looking to turn his Virginia defamation trial into a soap opera.
The attorney, Ben Rottenborn, said the case was not about “who you like more,” or “which party can sling more mud.” Instead, he said it was about the evidence and the law, and whether Depp could meet his legal burden to show that Heard had defamed him.“He can’t come close to doing that,” Rottenborn predicted. “The evidence isn’t pretty for Mr.
Depp.”Seven weeks later, however, the jury issued a unanimous verdict in favor of Depp. The seven jurors found by “clear and convincing” evidence that Heard had lied about him when she wrote a 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post, describing herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” They also ruled in Heard’s favor on one of three counterclaims, but the overall result was a lopsided win for Depp.
Depp was awarded $15 million — pared back to $10.35 million under Virginia’s punitive damages cap — while Heard was granted just $2 million. “What the jury said was, ‘Both of you did bad things,'” said Lawrence McClafferty, a trial lawyer based in Fairfax, Va. “But their view is that what she did is an order of magnitude worse.”As Rottenborn predicted, the evidence was not pretty, for either side.
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