For three weeks, Virginia jurors heard Johnny Depp and a parade of his witnesses portray the actor as a perfect gentleman who served as a human punching bag for his ex-wife, Amber Heard.
But on Tuesday, Depp’s legal team ended their defamation lawsuit in Fairfax County Court, where the actor is suing Heard for $50 million, by going back to the crux of his lawsuit: Heard would “ravage” his career with a 2018 Washington Post article in which she identifies herself as a survivor of domestic violence. (She had filed for a restraining order against Depp two years earlier.)
According to a forensic accountant who testified on Tuesday, that “devastation” reached a dazzling amount.
“I came to the conclusion that Mr. Depp suffered a loss of approximately $40 million in revenue,” Michael Spindler told the jury as the last witness to testify on behalf of Depp.
Echoing a previous witness, Spindler said one of Depp’s financial setbacks was his expulsion from the sixth. pirates of the caribbean episode, which reportedly cost the actor $22.5 million alone. The witness added that Depp made an estimated $17.5 million in 2017, which he described as a “typical” year for the actor. At that rate, along with the loss of the big Disney deal, Spindler said his calculation — including accounting records, depositions and other data — concluded that the actor would have made about $40 million more by now had it not been for for his image-tanking.
However, in cross-examination, Heard’s lawyers argued that Depp’s monetary loss was not his ex-wife’s fault, but his own, thanks in part to a “deterioration at the box office” for his films prior to the op-ed.
Amber Heard’s private nurse: I saw injuries on the actress
The forensic accountant’s testimony is crucial, as jurors must ultimately determine whether Heard defamed Depp and harmed his career.
Heard’s team claimed the op-ed served primarily as a forum for the actress to urge victims to speak out about a problem that affects millions of people. Terence Doughtery, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), testified before jurors via video deposits last week about how the nonprofit partnered with Heard to write and publish the column that “did not refer directly to Ms. Heard’s relationship.” with Johnny Depp.” He further noted that Heard’s attorneys specifically “removed references to her marriage and divorce.”
On Thursday, Heard’s attorneys counterattacked, asking Spindler how Depp’s monetary struggle might have been influenced by other factors. One of the possible sources of damage to Depp’s reputation and thus his finances, attorney Benjamin Rottenborn suggested, was a 2018 article by The sun that’s what Depp called a “wife beater.”
Depp eventually sued the British tabloid for the alleged mischaracterization, but lost in November 2020, when a London judge found there was “overwhelming evidence” that Depp had repeatedly assaulted Heard during their marriage.
“I don’t acknowledge that this is correct, I’m just saying that wasn’t part of my calculation,” Spindler said of the tabloid piece, noting that he also failed to consider the impact of Heard’s filing for a temporary restraining order. in 2016.
Depp’s team dropped their case after Spindler’s testimony, meaning Heard’s lawyers now have the floor to tell their side of the story.
Before the jurors took their Tuesday afternoon break, however, Heard’s team filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit — a fairly routine step in a civil case — arguing that Depp’s team hadn’t provided enough evidence to justify their case and that the actress should get a summary judgment.
The motion sparked a fiery response from Depp’s attorney Benjamin Chew, who claimed the actor was well within his rights to file a libel suit and that many witnesses and audio recordings showed Heard was the real abuser in the relationship.
“No one was interested in what she had to say unless she slandered Johnny Depp,” Chew said, referring to Heard’s op-ed, before claiming Depp’s “poignant” testimony proved his case. “We have Mrs. Heard’s own admission that she hit Mr. Depp.”
“Let’s hear from Amber Heard,” Chew added.
Judge Penney Azcarate ultimately sided with Depp’s team — that is, let the trial go ahead — and dismissed all of Heard’s motions except one, which she held under advice.
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