Depp trial jurors finally hear closings, begin deliberations
FALLS CHURCH, Va. — After a six-week trial in which Johnny Depp and Amber Heard tore into each other over the nasty details of their short marriage, both sides told a jury the exact same thing Friday — they want their lives back.
Heard “ruined his life by falsely telling the world she was a survivor of domestic abuse at the hands of Mr. Depp,” Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez told the jury in closing arguments in his libel trial against his ex-wife.
Heard’s lawyers, meanwhile, said Depp ruined Heard’s life by launching a smear campaign against her when she divorced him and publicly accused him of assault in 2016.
“In Mr. Depp’s world, you don’t leave Mr. Depp,” said Heard’s lawyer, J. Benjamin Rottenborn. “If you do, he will start a campaign of global humiliation against you.”
Depp is hoping the trial will help restore his reputation, though it has turned into a spectacle of a vicious marriage, with broadcast cameras in the courtroom capturing every twist.
“This case for Mr. Depp has never been about money,” said Depp lawyer Benjamin Chew. “It is about Mr. Depp’s reputation and freeing him from the prison in which he has lived for the last six years.”
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court over a 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers say he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
Heard filed a $100 million counterclaim against the star after his lawyer called her allegations a hoax. Though the counterclaim has received less attention at the trial, Heard lawyer Elaine Bredehoft said it provides an avenue for the jury to compensate Heard for the abuse Depp inflicted on her even after they split by orchestrating a smear campaign.
“We’re asking you to finally hold this man responsible,” she told the jury. “He has never accepted responsibility for anything in his life.”
The seven-person civil jury began its deliberations midafternoon Friday.
Depp says he never struck Heard and that she concocted the abuse allegations. He has said he was the one physically attacked by Heard multiple times.
“There is an abuser in this courtroom, but it is not Mr. Depp,” Vasquez said.
During the trial, Heard testified about more than a dozen episodes of physical and sexual assault that she said Depp inflicted on her.
Jurors have seen multiple photos of Heard with marks and bruises on her face, but some photos show only mild redness, and others show more severe bruising.
Vasquez accused Heard of doctoring the photos and said evidence that Heard has embellished some of her injuries is proof that all her claims of abuse are unfounded.
In Heard’s closing, Rottenborn said the nitpicking over Heard’s evidence of abuse ignores the fact there’s overwhelming evidence in her support and sends a dangerous message to domestic-violence victims.