American actor Amber Heard has been found guilty of defamation of ex-husband Johnny Depp. Now she has failed again in court.
Amber Heard leaves court in June following the verdict.
(dpa) American actress Amber Heard has failed in her motion to have the verdict overturned in the defamation lawsuit with her ex-husband Johnny Depp. Judge Penney Azcarate of the Fairfax County Court in Virginia declined on Wednesday to overturn the verdict and related claims for damages. Heard’s lawyers had requested this in view of possible procedural errors.
They argued that the identity of one of the seven jurors had not been verified. Accordingly, a younger man belonged to the jury, although his father had been written to as a potential juror with the same name and address.
Azcarate, on the other hand, found that the juror had met all the requirements and had been confirmed by both sides before the trial began. There was no evidence of fraud or infringement, the judge wrote in her reasoning. The industry portal “Deadline.com” put the court documents online on Wednesday.
After a six-week defamation trial, in which the ex-husbands accused themselves of domestic violence, the jury largely sided with Depp at the beginning of June – but also agreed with Heard on some points. She has to pay Depp more than $10 million in damages for defamation. Depp owes her $2 million for statements by his ex-lawyer that allegedly damaged Heard’s reputation, according to the jury’s decision.
At the heart of the civil lawsuit filed by Depp was a 2018 comment published by the Washington Post in which Heard described himself as a victim of domestic violence.