Celebrity
Amber Heard And Johnny Depp Fail To Reach Settlement
It’s believed in a year or two, the case will receive a “more definitive answer.”
It has emerged the world is yet to see the end of the trial between Amber Heard & Johnny Depp, as the Aquaman star has suggested appealing the verdict that was handed down on June 1st. It’s alleged the legal teams of the actors recently met in court, but it remains unknown if they actually discussed a settlement.
Entering a new judgment, Law & Crime Angenette Levy reported Judge Penny Azcarate echoed the verdict again and that it was no-nonsense.
Levy, via Twitter, also shared Judge Azcarate had given the two parties until Friday to reach a settlement if they wanted to do so and that Mr. Depp’s legal team didn’t request an injunction as expected. Notably, Heard’s attorney had told the TODAY Show the actress intends to appeal, arguing several things were allowed in the court that should not have been permitted.
In a statement to The Independent, Heard’s spokesperson said: As stated in yesterday’s congressional hearings, you don’t ask for a pardon if you are innocent. And, you don’t decline to appeal if you know you are right?”
Airing an opinion on the subject matter, Attorney Lisa Bloom, in an interview with BBC Newsnight, said the case would eventually be decided on appeal. Bloom’s clients had included Janice Dickinson in her allegations against Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, for whom Bloom was an early advisor before resigning, and actor Mischa Barton in a revenge p*rn lawsuit.
“I want to emphasize that this is not the end because most defamation cases are really decided on appeal,” Bloom told Newsnight, adding that she sees “a lot of issues on appeal” in the ex-couple case.
She branded the verdict “inconsistent” and then asked: “How can it be that Amber Heard was defamed when Johnny Depp’s lawyer said that her allegations were a hoax, and yet Johnny Depp was also defamed when she said she was representative of domestic violence? I think that’s inconsistent, and you can’t have an inconsistent verdict.”
Bloom also pointed out that one of the three statements found by the jury to be defamatory is the article’s headline, which Heard “did not write.”
She concluded: “She [Heard] retweeted it, but she didn’t write it. I retweet articles all the time. Am I responsible if there’s a false statement within that article? Generally, we think people are not responsible for that.” In all, Bloom said she believes that in a year or two, the case will receive a “more definitive answer.” However, the jury found that Depp was defamed in Heard’s op-ed in which she describes herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.”
It was also found that Heard was defamed in a statement by Adam Waldman (a former lawyer for Depp), calling some of the actress’s claims “a hoax.”
Jurors announced on 1 June they had reached a decision in the case opposing Depp and Heard in Fairfax, Virginia. They found that Heard defamed Depp on three statements and was defamed in one of three statements at the center of her counter-suit. Eventually, the Pirates of the Caribbean actor was awarded $10.35m in damages, and Heard was awarded $2m.
