‘Outlandish!’ Johnny Depp hits back at ex-wife Amber Heard’s ‘desperate’ bid for a retrial
Johnny Depp’s legal team have urged a Virginia judge to leave his $10million defamation judgement intact after attorneys for Amber Heard filed a request for a new trial on Friday claiming that Juror 15 was not the individual summoned to sit on the panel. The Pirates of the Caribbean actor’s legal representatives have said his ex-wife’s motion for a mistrial was “untimely” saying she has taken too long to lodge a challenge.
Ms Heard’s lawyers asked the judge to set aside the verdict on multiple grounds, including an apparent case of mistaken identity with one of the jurors.
Attorneys for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory star, who was awarded $10m in damages by a jury of seven, filed new court documents on Monday.
Mr Depp’s legal team argues that – even if the juror mix-up is correct – the individual who sat on the panel and sided with him in the case was still vetted by the court.
One of the claims is based on the fact that a 77-year-old man was summoned for jury duty – but a 52-year-old man, who shares the same last name and address, was improperly seated for the six-week trial.
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Mr Depp’s lawyers say that Ms Heard team’s complaints about the juror’s identity are irrelevant and would have caused no prejudice to the actress.
They added she had access to the purported new “facts” months ago and that she has failed to cite any unfair prejudice.
The actor’s lawyers have called Ms Heard’s bid for a new trial “desperate” and “outlandish”.
They said: “Ms. Heard’s desperate, after-the-fact demand for an investigation of Juror 15 based on a purported error in his birth date is…misplaced… Moreover, Ms. Heard’s argument is based on pure speculation.”
The lawyers at Brown Rudnick LLP concluded by again calling Heard’s argument “frivolous”.
“For all the reasons set forth above, Mr. Depp respectfully requests that this Court deny Ms. Heard’s frivolous Motion in its entirety and reject her outlandish requests to set aside the jury verdict, dismiss the Complaint, or, in the alternative, order a new trial, and investigate Juror 15.”
Ms Heard is calling for a mistrial and a new trial to be ordered because of the alleged mix-up.
The documents say that the individual listed on the jury panel list sent to both legal teams ahead of the trial starting was born in 1945 and is aged 77.
Juror 15 who sat through the almost two-month-long trial was born in 1970 and is aged 52, claims Ms Heard’s attorneys.
While the two individuals allegedly share the same last name, it is not clear if they also share the same first name.
Following the dramatic televised trial, Mr Depp was awarded $10.35million after they found he was defamed by Ms Heard when she wrote a 2018 op-ed piece in The Washington Post about domestic violence – although the actor was not named.
She was awarded $2m in compensatory damages after The Aquaman star won one of her three counterclaims against her ex-husband.
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