copy & paste from the New York Times a few minutes ago:
Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial Live Updates: Jury Finds Depp Was Defamed
The jury found Mr. Depp was defamed by Ms. Heard when she described herself in an op-ed as a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” but also that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers.
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Amber Heard says she is ‘heartbroken’ by the verdict.
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Credit...From left, Kevin Lamarque/Reuters; Steve Helber/Associated Press
Here’s what you need to know:
The jury found that both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were defamed, but awarded more money to him.
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The libel case that pitted Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard lasted six weeks.Credit...Photographs by Steve Helber/Associated Press
A jury in Virginia on Wednesday found that the actor Johnny Depp had been defamed by his ex-wife Amber Heard in a 2018 op-ed, a verdict that handed the actor a victory in his long, messy battle over domestic abuse allegations.
But the jury’s decision was split, also finding that one of the three statements at the center of Ms. Heard’s lawsuit, by one of Mr. Depp’s lawyers at the time, had been defamatory.
The jury awarded Mr. Depp $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages, but the judge capped the punitive damages total in accordance with legal limits, resulting in a total of $10.35 million. The jury awarded Ms. Heard $2 million in damages.
The jury’s decision came after a six-week trial that transfixed the nation, with millions of people watching it on television or streaming it online as the two major Hollywood stars made charges and countercharges of physical abuse against one another in court, sometimes in lurid detail. It was one of the highest-profile civil cases of the #MeToo era to go to trial.
Mr. Depp fiercely denied Ms. Heard’s accusations that he subjected her to
repeated physical abuse that included punching, head-butting and dragging by the hair, as well as several instances of sexual assault.
“It’s insane to hear heinous accusations of violence — sexual violence — that she’s attributed to me,” Mr. Depp testified. “I don’t think anyone enjoys having to split themselves open and tell the truth, but there are times when one just simply has to because it’s gotten out of control.”
Mr. Depp’s lawsuit accused Ms. Heard of defaming him in a Washington Post
op-ed in which she referred to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse” and said she witnessed “how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
The article, which was spearheaded and prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union, never mentioned Mr. Depp by name, but he argued that it clearly referred to their marriage, which began in 2015 and fell apart just over a year later.
Ms. Heard, 36, maintained throughout the trial that everything written in the op-ed was true and that she was the one who was defamed when, in 2020, a lawyer representing Mr. Depp, 58, made statements to a British tabloid calling her abuse accusations a “hoax.” She sued Mr. Depp for those statements, arguing that the lawyer was acting as his agent. But as part of its decision on Tuesday, the jury declined to find that her ex-husband had defamed her.
The win for Mr. Depp, who denies ever hitting Ms. Heard or any other woman, is at odds with a legal loss in Britain, where Mr. Depp had sued the publishers of The Sun, a tabloid newspaper, in 2020. The Sun had called him a “wife beater” in a headline, and the case ended with a ruling by a judge,
Andrew Nicol, who found there was evidence he had assaulted Ms. Heard.
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Julia Jacobs and Adam Bednar
Amber Heard says she is ‘heartbroken’ by the verdict.
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Amber Heard leaving court Wednesday.Credit...Tom Brenner/Reuters
Amber Heard said in a statement that she was disappointed “beyond words” after her ex-husband Johnny Depp was awarded a victory in his defamation lawsuit against her.
“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,” she said.
Ms. Heard, who received a partial victory in her lawsuit against Mr. Depp, said she thought Mr. Depp’s legal team had succeeded in persuading the jury to “ignore” evidence that led to a British judge deciding that there was evidence he abused her in a 2020 libel case.
“I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women,” she said. “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.”
Ms. Heard said in the statement that she was sad about the outcome but “sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American — to speak freely and openly.”
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Julia Jacobs