Amber and €3.3m unpaid donation
Actress admits not paying all cash pledged to charities
AMBER Heard could face a perjury probe by police over a claim she made in the UK high court that she would donate €3.3million of her divorce settlement to charity, a legal expert said yesterday.
After her marriage to Pirates Of The Caribbean star Johnny Depp ended in 2017, Ms Heard said she would split the $7million (€6.6million) settlement between two good causes.
However, giving evidence in the couple’s defamation trial in Virginia, US, on Monday, the actress said she has yet to make the full donation to a Los Angeles children’s hospital and the American Civil Liberties Union ‘because Johnny sued me for $50million in March of 2019’.
She had previously stated on several occasions that she had made the donation – including under oath at her 2020 UK high court libel case with Depp in London.
Depp, 58, who lost the London case, is suing his exwife for $50million over a piece she wrote in The Washington Post in 2018 in which she said she survived domestic abuse. Ms Heard, 35, is counter-suing for $100million and claims his lawyers shredded her reputation by calling her a liar.
Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez argued earlier that Ms Heard had the money she pledged to donate for months yet failed to hand it over as she promised. The disclosure has led to accusations she misled the public when talking about the donations on talk shows and may have lied under oath.
Sean Caulfield, of law firm Hodge, Jones and Allen, told Mail Online that Ms Heard could face a perjury probe in the UK as misleading a court ‘cuts to the core of our justice system’.
Asked if he could see police investigating the claims, he added: ‘Yes, I think so. While it [the donation] may not be a central issue to the case, perjury is the single biggest threat and cuts to the core of our justice system. So the police may be invited to investigate to show that any member of the public who lies to the court can be prosecuted for perjury.’
The US court heard Ms Heard was paid the €6.6million in instalments with the final payment of €2.1million arriving in February 2018.
Depp sued Ms Heard in 2019 after her Washington Post piece in December 2018.
Ms Vasquez asked Ms Heard: ‘You had all of $7million for 13 months and you chose not to pay it to the charities?’
Ms Heard said: ‘I disagree with your characterisation of that’. Ms Vasquez continued: ‘Sitting here today, you still haven’t donated the $7million divorce settlement to charity?’ The actress replied: ‘Incorrect, I pledged the entirety... I intend to fulfil my obligations.’
Ms Heard responded: ‘I have not yet.’ The court was told yesterday that the actress told Depp she wanted to ‘rip him apart and devour him in a ‘Love Journal’ shown at the trial.
The actress said that she wanted to ‘savour the taste’ of the Hollywood star in the intimate diary they both wrote in.
In another entry, Ms Heard wrote: ‘I am sorry I can get crazy... I can get wicked when I get hurt’.
The court was also shown photographs from a fashion shoot that Ms Heard took part in on Depp’s private island in the Bahamas in 2015. She alleged that Depp head-butted and repeatedly beat her weeks earlier – yet the photos showed no sign of injury to her face.
Closing arguments in the sixweek trial are scheduled for May 27.