Sat | Nov 23, 2024

Lawyer: Heard was ‘demonised’ by Depp team, social media

Published:Saturday | June 4, 2022 | 12:07 AM
Pause
Supporters of actor Johnny Depp listen outside the courthouse as the verdict is announced in Depp’s libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard.
AP
Supporters of actor Johnny Depp listen outside the courthouse as the verdict is announced in Depp’s libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard.
Actor Amber Heard waits before the verdict was read at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia on Wednesday.
AP
Actor Amber Heard waits before the verdict was read at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia on Wednesday.
1
2

FAIRFAX, Virginia (AP):

Amber Heard was “demonised” by ex-husband Johnny Depp’s legal team and excoriated on social media during a sensational defamation trial that ended with a jury ordering her to pay Depp US$15 million, Heard’s lawyer said Thursday.

Elaine Bredehoft, one of Heard’s lead attorneys during the trial, said she believes the jury was influenced by a relentless barrage of social-media posts condemning her and supporting Depp. She said Heard plans to appeal.

“These people were giving her death threats. They threatened to microwave her baby. This is the kind of social media she was getting,” Bredehoft said on “CBS Mornings”.

“It was like a Roman coliseum is the best way to describe the atmosphere here. And I have to believe that the jury, even though they’re told not to go and look at anything, you know, they have weekends, they have families, they have social media,” she said.

Bredehoft also said some evidence that was allowed in a similar defamation lawsuit that Depp lost in the UK was suppressed in the lawsuit he filed in Virginia. In the UK case, the judge found that Depp assaulted Heard on a dozen occasions.

“We weren’t allowed to tell the jury this,” Bredehoft said on NBC’s “Today” show. “So what did Depp’s team learn from this? Demonise Amber. And suppress the evidence.” The verdict handed down Wednesday in Fairfax County Circuit Court found that Depp had been defamed by three statements in a 2018 op-ed written by Heard in which she said she was an abuse victim. The jury awarded him US$10 million in compensatory damages and US$5 million in punitive damages, but the judge reduced the punitive damages award to US$350,000 under a state cap.

Depp attorney Camille Vasquez said Wednesday that the verdict “confirms what we have said from the beginning, that the claims against Johnny Depp are defamatory and unsupported by any evidence”.

When asked on “Today” whether Heard has the money to pay the US$10.35 million, Bredehoft said, “Oh, no, absolutely not.”

The jury also awarded Heard US$2 million in her countersuit, concluding that she was defamed by a lawyer for Depp who accused her of creating a detailed hoax surrounding the abuse allegations.