The multinational legal battles between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have just become much less charitable.
Like once married Rum Diary co-stars move toward a May 3 trial in Depp’s $ 50 million defamation suit against Heard, claims have now reappeared about whether the Aquaman star actually donated her $ 7 million 2016 divorce settlement to charity, as promised.
A story clearly planted in the UK Daily Mail that seems to aim to help you get the Pirates of the Caribbean actor, the new trial he is seeking against another tabloid The sun about being labeled a “women beater” in print.
“Sir. Depp’s effort to spread stories in the media criticizing Amber for not yet fulfilling all the donations she promised to charity is yet another desperate attempt to divert attention from the UK Court’s findings related to allegations that Depp committed abuse. domestic violence and violence, ”Heard’s US attorney Elaine Bredehoft told Deadline in a statement Thursday after the Submit story appeared online.
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Deviating perhaps, but not false, it seems.
While Depp initially delivered $ 100,000 of the $ 3.5 million pledged to the LA Children’s Hospital Foundation on behalf of Heard in 2016, a 2019 letter from the organization asks the actress “if you know whether CHLA should wait any longer installments on your behalf or if the promise will not be kept. ”
Heard declared in the UK Supreme Court last year, and on several other occasions in recent years, that she donated all $ 7 million to CHLA and ACLU after some initial hiccups in the deal with her ex-husband. In fact, in his scathing November 2020 decision against Depp in the defamation case against Rupert Murdoch’s property SunJudge Andrew Nichol made a point of praising Heard while the Depp team sought to tarnish the motivations of the advocate of violence against domestic violence. “The $ 7 million donation to charity is hardly what you would expect from a gold digger,” said the Superior Court judge, also saying The sun’The claims against Depp were “substantially true”.
However, today Heard’s attorney in the Virginia-based defamation case and his client’s $ 100 million counter-claim has remarkably receded to the full extent of the actress’s benefits
“Amber has already been responsible for seven figures in donations to charitable causes and intends to continue to contribute and, eventually, keep her promise,” added the Reston located Bredehoft. “However, Amber was late on that goal because Mr. Depp filed a lawsuit against her and, consequently, she was forced to spend millions of dollars defending Mr. Depp’s false accusations against her.”
Although it implicitly confirms Depp’s claims that the donations were not fully made, Bredehoft’s explanation actually further complicates the matter in another way. Depp sued Heard for defamation in 2019, more than two years after the divorce settlement. So how much money did Heard have to pay lawyers from 2017 to 2019?
That issue may now become a major issue in the UK. Having already seen an appeal attempt go nowhere, as Depp’s lawyers in the UK want a retrial in part because the first trial judge “failed to properly assess his credibility by reference to documentary evidence, photographs, recordings or otherwise. “
Judge Nicol “concluded that the appellant was guilty of serious physical assaults, regardless of or even acknowledging that Mrs. Heard had been false in her evidence, without testing her report against documentary and other witness evidence, and without anyone found that they did not believe in these witnesses, ”wrote attorney David Sherborne to the Court of Appeals on Christmas Eve.
Deadline asked Heard’s attorney, Bredehoft, if the fact that his client did not donate the entire $ 7 million deal, as she said, could impact the defamation case (s) in the United States or the United Kingdom. United. “No. They have nothing to do with each other,” replied PC partner Charlson Bredehoft Cohen & Brown.
ACLU did not respond to a Deadline request regarding the status of Heard’s donations. CHLA did, more or less. “Due to the circumstances of the dispute, CHLA is legally prevented from sharing details about the case publicly,” said a spokesman for Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles tonight.
Depp representatives did not have a timely statement when contacted by Deadline. But, Depp’s legal advisor, Adam Waldman, responded online to Heard’s Bredehoft observation “eventually” comply with donations by posting “this is the same as a 4-year media spasm with the $ 7 million charity donation. ? Is it the same thing that was said in court under oath? No, it’s not the same. “
Often mentioned in filings by Heard’s lawyers in Virginia cases and no longer representing Depp directly on the subject, Waldman is being sought for a testimony that Heard’s team says he’s dodging. “Just like Mr. Depp, who refused to appear for his duly noted deposition, Mr. Waldman appears or believes that the clear rules of this Court regarding depositions do not apply to him,” says a January 4 memorandum. as opposed to Heard’s lawyers at Team Depp’s motion for a protection order.
Having failed earlier this week to have Heard’s $ 100 million counterclaims rejected in the Virginia court, it is probably no coincidence that the donor dispute is being accelerated to a new level now. In December, Fairfax County Judge Bruce White granted Depp’s wish for Heard to hand over her decade-long prison record and documentation related to how she allocated funds from the 2016 divorce settlement.
Although the Oscar nominee lost in other large portions of that “wide range of irrelevant, wide-ranging and privileged discoveries” (to quote Heard’s opposition filed on December 11), there is suddenly potentially damaging documentation appearing for the defendant and counterpart. author in the UK press – the other front in the couple’s ongoing litigation.
The now ax Fantastic beats actor sued Heard in the Old Dominion in March 2019 after she wrote a Washington Post opined about being a victim of domestic violence. The play never really called Depp, but the already contentious actor said it cost him a show in a planned Pirates of the Caribbean restart. The lawsuit went on to say that Depp was actually the victim of the stormy relationship: “Mrs. Heard is not a victim of domestic violence, she is a perpetrator ”.
In that case, more previously closed documents are about to be made public, so to speak. On January 5, on the advice of both sides, Judge White ordered that Depp’s financial information and tax returns were no longer designated as “Confidential under the Protective Order”.
Having seen the full extent of his seemingly excessive wealth and spending habits made public earlier in a previous process, as long as he agreed with his former business managers, Depp may not care much about his financial situation being there again.
However, perception, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.