WASHINGTON – A Virginia court denied actress Amber Heard’s request for a new trial in the defamation case she lost to her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, on Wednesday.
Judge Penney Azcarate refused Heard’s lawyers’ motion to set aside the jury judgment awarded Depp $10 million and declare a mistrial.
Heard had requested a new trial because one of the seven jurors was mistakenly identified as his son rather than the guy summoned for jury duty.
“There is no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing,” Azcarate said, and the juror “met the statutory requirements for service.”
“The juror was vetted, sat for the entire jury, deliberated, and reached a verdict,” the judge said.
Following a dramatic six-week trial based on highly contested charges of domestic abuse, the jury found Depp and Heard responsible for defamation in June, but sided more strongly with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star.
The case, which was live-streamed to millions, revealed gruesome and intimate information about the private lives of Hollywood celebrities.
The jury awarded Depp $10 million in damages after concluding that Heard’s 2018 newspaper article on her experience with “sexual violence” was defamatory.
Depp, 59, sued Heard in connection with a Washington Post op-ed in which she did not name him but portrayed herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
Heard, 36, who had counter-sued, was awarded $2 million.
Source: AFP