Wednesday 1 June 2022 08:40 PM Johnny wins! Jury rules in Depp's favor in blockbuster defamation trial against ... trends now

Johnny Depp has won his defamation case against Amber Heard with the jury awarding him $15million, after less than three days of deliberation.

Heard was awarded $2million in compensatory damages out of the $100million she was seeking in her countersuit against her ex-husband. She was awarded zero dollars in punitive damages.

Depp was not present as he was in the UK on tour with guitar legend Jeff Beck - a source claimed it was due to 'previously scheduled work commitments.' Meanwhile, Heard walked into court wearing a black dress and appeared anxious.

In a dramatic courtroom moment, the jury returned with their verdict only to be told by the judge that they hadn't completed the paperwork properly. 

The judge was handed an envelope by an officer of the court and asked the lawyers to approach for a brief discussion. Left alone, Heard looked down at the floor, lost in thought before her lawyers came back to her.

Judge Azcarate addressed the jury and said: 'I need to give the forms back to you. When you find for a defamatory statement, one or more, you need to fill out the compensatory damages. It needs to be at least a dollar up to whatever the damages are. For punitive damages you can put a zero. I need those lines filled out. Retire back to the deliberation room and do that for me.'

The jury left as the judge told everyone not to go anywhere far, before they came back to deliver the verdict. 

Before the jury came in Judge Penney Azcarate addressed the public gallery and said: 'This is a court of law. Regardless of the verdict I will not tolerate any outbursts whatsoever.'

Amber Heard said in a statement after the verdict, 'The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I'm heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband.

'I'm even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously.

'I believe Johnny's attorneys succeeded in getting the jury to overlook the key issue of Freedom of Speech and ignore evidence that was so conclusive that we won in the UK.

'I'm sad I lost this case. But I am sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American – to speak freely and openly.'

The lightning-fast verdict came as the culmination of the six-week trial that was the OJ Simpson case for Generation Z: a spectacle that was chopped up and replayed on TikTok in clips that were viewed tens of millions of times. 

It was the second time the former husband and wife squared off in court: Depp lost a libel case against a British newspaper at the High Court in London in 2020 where a judge ruled it was 'substantially true' he was a wife beater.

In the new case held in Fairfax, Virginia, Depp, 58, sued Heard for $50million claiming that she defamed him with an op-ed piece in the Washington Post in 2018 in which she claimed to be a survivor of domestic abuse.

Heard, 35, countersued for $100million claiming that Depp's lawyer Adam Waldman made defamatory statements by calling her claims a 'hoax.'

Since the marathon trial started on April 11, Depp has called 38 witnesses while Heard's team called 24.

Both Depp and Heard gave evidence for four days each including a forensic cross examination from the opposition lawyers – then both returned to the witness stand to testify a second time.

The jury saw dozens of texts, photos, videos, medical records and even pages from the former couple's 'Love Journal' they hand wrote to each other.

The libel case was so complicated that the verdict sheet had 42 questions the jury had to answer before delivering the verdict: 24 questions for Depp's claims and 18 for Heard's counterclaim.

A verdict form is used to formalize the jury's decision on the case. Spanning eight pages, it means the jury had to decide on dozens of matters before reaching their verdict.

There is also a section where they had to decide on the damages for Depp and Heard – and any punitive damages.

The court heard clips of recordings that Depp and Heard made during their arguments, some of their most intimate moments that were played back for the world years later in the most public setting imaginable.

Here DailyMail.com wraps up the sometimes explosive testimony and evidence in the case:

THE CASE 

Despite the torrent of evidence about abuse from both sides, the case was actually about a far narrower issue.

For Depp's $50million claim, the jury had to decide whether or not Heard had defamed him with her piece in the Washington Post that said she was a survivor of domestic abuse. The article did not name Depp, but he argued that it was obvious that she was referring to him.

Depp sued over three parts of the article, which said: 'I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture's wrath'; that Heard was a 'public figure representing domestic abuse' and that she had a 'rare vantage point of seeing how institutions protect men accused of abuse.'

As part of this, the jury had to decide whether or not Heard was speaking about a matter of 'public concern.' If so she was protected under the First Amendment.

For Heard's counterclaim, which she demanded $100million for, she claimed that Depp's lawyer Adam Waldman defamed her with three statements he made to the media in 2020.

They were that Heard 'used fake sexual violence allegations as sword and shield'; 'this was an ambush, a hoax…Amber and her friends spilled a little wine, roughed the place up, got their stories straight under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911' and another statement calling her claims an 'abuse hoax. In both cases each party had to prove that the statements were made with 'actual malice', meaning they were done knowing they were wrong.

DEPP'S TESTIMONY

Speaking in a halting, rambling voice, Depp portrayed himself as a 'Southern gentleman' who was scarred from his upbringing in Kentucky at the hands of an abusive mother.

He said that Heard's claims of abuse were 'heinous and disturbing' and were 'not based in any species of truth.'

When Heard filed for a restraining order in 2016 following their divorce, Depp went from 'Cinderella to Quasimodo' in Hollywood, he complained.

Like with his mother, Depp would try to walk away from conflict but she never let him.

While Depp admitted he did have a 'monster' inside of him that came out when he drank and did drugs, he claimed Heard was the real abuser.

Depp said that at the beginning of their relationship Heard felt 'too good to be true' but then she started to 'reveal herself'.

She subjected him to an 'endless parade of insults' and uncontrolled rage and, as Depp told the jury: 'I was not allowed to be right. I was not allowed to have a voice.

'It was like you were pinned to a wall and you have to just listen to it and take it.'

According to Depp, it felt like he was reliving his relationship with his mother all over again, and Heard had a 'pure hatred' of him.

Depp said that Heard had a 'need for conflict' that she enacted upon him.

He stayed with her because Heard threatened to kill herself if she left him and, just like his father, he became stoic in the face of a volatile woman.

The abuse culminated in the incident in Australia where Depp claimed that Heard became 'possessed' and threw a vodka bottle at him, hitting his hand and severing his fingertip.

He told the jury: 'My hand is on the edge of the bar like that, leaning over.

'She threw the large bottle and it made contact and shattered everywhere and I honestly didn't feel the pain at first at all, I felt no pain.

'What I felt was heat and I felt as if something were dripping down my hand and then I looked down and realized that the tip of my finger had been severed. I was looking directly at my bone sticking out.'

Then Heard stubbed a cigarette out on Depp's face, he claimed.

Under cross examination Depp was interrogated about texts, videos and photos which showed him to be the aggressor.

He was confronted with messages he sent to his friend, the British actor Paul Bettany in which Depp wrote: 'Let's Burn Amber.'

In another message Depp said: 'I will f**k her burnt corpse afterward to make sure she is dead.

Heard's lawyer Benjamin Rottenborn said: 'You wrote that about the woman who would later become your wife.'

Depp said: 'Yes.'

In a message to another friend, Depp said he wanted to see Heard's 'rotting corpse decomposing in the f**king trunk of a Honda Civic.'

To his agent Christian Carino Depp said that Heard will 'hit the wall hard' and he hoped 'karma takes the gift of breath from her.'

Depp tried to explain such messages as 'dark humor' that he got from watching the British TV comedy show Monty Python.

Then there was the 2014 flight from Boston to Los Angeles where Heard claimed that Depp was drunk and abusive before blacking out.

The court heard an audio recording of Depp groaning 'like an animal' after he passed out.

A week after the flight, Depp texted Bettany: 'Ugly mate... A thousand Red Bull and vodkas, pills, two bottles of champers on plane and what do you get? Screaming obscenities and insulting any f**k who got near. I'm done.'

The court was also shown a video of Depp smashing up the kitchen of his home in Los Angeles while drinking what was described as a 'mega pint' of wine.

Depp says in the film: 'You want to see crazy? I'll give you crazy.'

Trying to explain his actions, Depp said: 'I did assault a couple of cabinets but I did not touch Miss Heard.'

As the cross examination went on, Depp grew tired of Rottenborn, saying his name out loud with an emphasis on 'rotten.'

Depp tried to defuse the tension with humor and, asked if he usually drank whiskey in the mornings, Depp said: 'Isn't it happy hour any time?'

The only time Depp truly became emotional was when the jury heard an audio recording of one of his last fights with Heard, after they had divorced and were attempting to reconcile where he repeatedly asked her to cut him with a knife.

HEARD'S TESTIMONY

Amber Heard told the jury how she went from feeling like the 'luckiest woman in the world' when she and Depp began seeing each other in 2012 to being called a 'c**t' on an almost daily basis.

In emotional testimony, she described Depp as a violent and jealous man who would essentially veto films she wanted to do because he didn't want her exposing her body on camera.

And she sobbed as she described  in graphic detail how Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle in Australia in March 2015, one of a litany of shocking claims.

The incident happened during what Heard called a 'three-day hostage situation' when Depp was out of his mind on ecstasy pills and cocaine and supposed to be filming Pirates of the Caribbean 5.

As Heard described it, she felt a pressure against her pubic bone and recalled fearing he was using a broken bottle inside of her.

She said: 'I thought he was punching me, I felt this pressure on my pubic bone...I remember looking around the room. I remember looking at all the broken bottles, broken glass, and I remember just not wanting to move because I didn't know if it was broken or if the bottle he had inside of me was broken.'

Heard described what was dubbed the 'cavity search' incident. when she testified Depp reached into her vagina searching for cocaine and  the time he headbutted her leaving her with a suspected broken nose.

Heard described another sexual assault on Depp's private island in The Bahamas in December 2015 and claimed he was drunk in front of his children.

As Heard described it, she tried to get Depp to quit drinking and taking drugs but the 'monster' inside of him kept coming back.

She hit out at the online hate mob of trolls who said they wanted to put her baby in the microwave.

Heard said: 'It's easy to forget, I'm a person.'

Under cross examination Heard admitted that she had not donated her $7million divorce settlement to charity as she repeatedly claimed, including during the libel trial in the UK in 2020.

Heard tried to claim that she saw the words 'pledge' and 'donate' as the same and claimed she had spent $6million on legal fees, meaning she was unable to fulfill her promises.

She was also forced to explain an audio recording where she admitted to hitting Depp but denied punching him.

Her clash with Depp's lawyer Camille Vasquez was lauded by Depp's fans online who dubbed the attorney 'Queen Camille.'

KATE MOSS AND ELLEN BARKIN: THE CELEBRITY WITNESSES

Kate Moss was called as a surprise last minute witness by Depp's team. Over three minutes of testimony from her home in the English countryside, Moss denied a rumor cited by Heard that Depp once pushed her down the stairs while they were vacationing in Jamaica during the time they dated between 1994-1998. 

In fact, he came to her aide and helped her get medical attention, Moss said.

Moss's evidence was cited by Depp's lawyer Benjamin Chew as proof the case was 'MeToo without MeToo' as not even Moss accused him of abuse.

But testifying for Heard, actress Ellen Barkin testified that Depp threw a bottle of wine at her and she called him a 'controlling, jealous man.'

She said: 'I had a scratch on my back once that got him very, very angry because he he insisted it came from having sex with a person who wasn't him.'

KEY WITNESSES

While Depp relied on a number of his employees to make his case, Heard turned to friends and witnesses to argue hers.

Depp's 38 witnesses ranged from his sister to his security guards, his chauffeur and a senior Warner Bros executive.

Heard's 24 witnesses included her sister Whitney and her former best friend Rocky Pennington who both detailed seeing incidents where Depp was violent and abusive.

Both sides called dueling experts on several areas of the case.

A photography expert called by Depp's side claimed that the images of Heard's face with injuries could have been faked. Not so, said the equivalent expert from team Heard – they were authentic.

There were conflicting accounts of how much damage the claims had done to each side's career with Depp's financial damages expert arguing he had lost $40million in acting roles after her op-ed was published.

A Hollywood industry expert hired by Heard's lawyers argued she lost as much as $50million from Depp's claims against her.

The division even extended to Heard's mental state.

Depp called Dr. Sharon Curry, a clinical and forensic psychologist, who diagnosed Heard with borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder and said she suffered from violent mood swings.

Heard's equivalent expert, Dr. Dawn Hughes, rejected this and said that Heard had a clear cut case of PTSD from her years of trauma.

One of the few unbiased observers called to give evidence was Laurel Anderson, a marriage counselor who treated Depp and Heard.

She told the court that they engaged in 'mutual abuse' and that Heard 'fought as hard' as Depp did.

Dr. Anderson said that Depp was 'triggered' into acting out his abusive upbringing by Heard's violence.

Heard would initiate fights with Depp rather than have him walk away because 'abandonment was her worst nightmare

Another key witness was Walter Hamada, the President of DC Comics film production for Warner Bros.

He denied that the studio was considering paying Heard more for Aquaman 2 because a 'big part of our philosophy' was to hold actors to their original agreements.

Heard's legal team claimed she could have renegotiated her fee from $2million for the first Aquaman movie to $6million for the second one.

Hamada also denied Heard's claims that her character, Mera's role was being dramatically reduced with an action scene taken away from her.

In his evidence the ACLU's general counsel, Terence Dougherty, admitted that the civil rights organization drew up the first draft of Heard's op-ed.

Dougherty also admitted that the piece was timed to coincide with the release of Aquaman to leverage publicity for the film to have as much impact as possible.

THE POOP INCIDENT

After a fight in April 2016, Depp and Heard  didn't see each other for a month – but Depp claimed that Heard left him a surprise.

He told the court he found a poop in the bed of the penthouse they shared in Los Angeles and he thought it was disgusting.

Depp's chauffeur Starling Jenkins claimed that Heard once told him it was a 'horrible prank that went wrong.'

In her testimony Heard suggested that it was one of their Yorkshire terriers, Boo, that did the dirty deed, telling the court that the animal had 'eaten Johnny's weed as a puppy and had bowel control issues for life.'

Heard said that Boo and their other dog, Pistol, would sleep in their bed so Boo wouldn't have to get up in the night and possibly do

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