A Virginia jury has found that Amber Heard defamed Johnny Depp when she wrote a 2018 Washington Post op-ed alluding to her past claims of domestic violence.
However, the jury also found that Depp defamed Heard, through his attorney, in the course of fighting back against her charges. The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages, plus $5 million in punitive damages — which Judge Penney Azcarate reduced to $350,000 in accordance with the state’s statutory cap.
The jury awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages for her counterclaim.
The court clerk read aloud the jury’s verdict, finding that Heard had defamed Depp with each of three statements in the op-ed. The jury also found that Heard had acted with “actual malice,” meaning that they were convinced she had made the statements knowing they were false. The jury ruled in favor of Heard on one out of three statements that were made by Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, in the Daily Mail. Waldman had asserted that Heard and her friends had set up “an ambush, a hoax,” when police were called to the couple’s apartment in May 2016.
In a statement after the verdict, Depp said that Heard’s false claims had “a seismic impact on my life and my career.”
“And six years later, the jury gave me my life back,” he said. “I am truly humbled.”
Depp said he was “overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and the colossal support and kindness from around the world,” and that the verdict left him “at peace.”
“From the very beginning,...
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