American actress Amber Heard's request for a fresh trial in her defamation case against ex-husband Johnny Depp has been denied by a Virginia court in the United States. On Wednesday, the judge, who presided over the six-week trial in April-June, issued a written order denying Heard’s request to have the June 1 verdict in the high-profile trial set aside.
The defamation trial ended with the Virginia court order Heard to pay USD 10 million in compensatory damages and USD 5 million in punitive damages in the verdict, but Depp was only ordered to pay Heard USD 2 million.
Last week, Heard’s lawyers filed a motion saying that one of the jurors chosen for the trial was not the same person who received the jury summons. The lawyers demanded that the trial be overturned, including the $10.35 million in damages given to Depp by the jury. They also claimed that the Aquaman actress was unaware of the headline of her article. However, Depp’s legal team dismissed the appeal and called the filing ‘frivolous’.
Judge Penney Azcarate also rejected all of Heard’s claims and said the juror issue specifically was irrelevant. The judge reportedly said, “The only evidence before this Court is that this juror and all jurors followed their oaths, the Court’s instructions, and orders.”
Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp
Heard sued Depp for defamation in March 2019 after she wrote a 2018 op-ed piece in The Washington Post, where she claimed to be the survivor of domestic abuse. The article did not mention Depp’s name, but his lawyers said the article defamed him by referring to allegations of abuse as she filed for divorce in 2016.
In early June, a jury in Fairfax County, Virginia, found Heard guilty of three defamation claims.
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