The jury forces Heard to compensate her ex-partner with 10.35 million dollars in damages, while Depp will have to give the actress 2 million dollars for the same concept.
Questioned in a program of the NBC network, about whether Heard will be able to pay compensationher attorney, Elaine Bredehoft, replied: “Oh no, absolutely not.”
He added that Heard intends to appeal the verdict and claimed that the actor’s legal team worked to “demonize” the actress and suppressed crucial evidence at trial. “A number of things were allowed in this courtroom that shouldn’t have been allowed, and that confused the jury,” she said.
It’s a major setback, because that’s exactly what it means
The ruling bodes ill for the “MeToo” movement and will discourage women from reporting sexual harassment and abuse, the lawyer said. “It’s a horrible message (…) It’s a major setback, because that’s exactly what it means.”
“Unless you take out your phone and record your spouse or your partner beating you, they will effectively not believe you,” he said.
Depp58 years old and who had already lost a defamation case in the United Kingdom in 2020 against The Sun for calling him a “wife beater”, celebrated the verdict of the case as a victorywhile Heard said she was “heartbroken”.
The actor sued his ex-wife for an opinion piece he wrote for the newspaper Washington Post in December 2018 in which he was described as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”.
Amber Heard, starring in Aquaman, did not name Depp in the piece. Still, he he sued her for implying that he was a domestic abuser and asked for 50 million dollars in damages.
The 36-year-old actress countersued him for $100 million, saying she was defamed by statements made by Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, who testified to the Daily Mail that his claims of abuse were a “hoax”.