“Amber Heard slandered Johnny Depp.” The final verdict: you will have to pay 10 million

After three days in the council chamber, the seven jurors announced that they had arrived unanimously final verdict
of the Depp v. Heard case: there was defamation. The actor won and is entitled to $ 10.35 million in compensation (against the 50 he had asked for). During the announcement, Amber Heard’s downward gaze and barely restrained cry met with the cheering crowd waiting outside the building. Two million instead that Depp will owe the actress for some sentences uttered by the actor’s lawyer and deemed offensive. .

The jury had ruled that Amber Heard had to pay 15 million dollars: 10 for the unfounded charges plus 5 of so-called “punitive damages”; but under Virginia law this entry cannot exceed $ 350,000. Hence the final calculation of 10.35 million.

“The disappointment I feel now cannot be explained in words,” Heard said immediately after reading the verdict, “I am heartbroken that the mountain of evidence was not enough to counteract the disproportionate power of my ex husband“. And she concluded: “A return to the time when a woman who dared to speak out against domestic violence was publicly humiliated”

Depp’s lawyers, Ben Chew and Camille Vasquez, they left the classroom greeted by the screams of the fans. “The verdict confirms what we have been advocating from the start: Heard’s allegations are false and defamatory, we are grateful to the jury for their cooperation, ”said Vasquez almost embarrassed by the general enthusiasm. “We are honored to have assisted Mr. Depp and ensured that he was heard in this judgment,” Chew added.

«After six years from the moment in which my life and that of my children changed forever, (…) the jury gave me back my life. I am truly honored », reads the long post published on Johnny Depp’s Instagram profile which has obtained over 5 million likes.

The jury went out for the first time at 15.00 (9.00 pm in Italy): the judge, after having summoned the lawyers of both sides, invited “the seven” to enter in the questionnaire the amount of compensation due to the victorious party.

About half an hour after the announcement, Amber Heard had already arrived, while Johnny Depp confirmed the rumors that he was absent because he was still in England. The actor’s lawyers in fact sat in front of the judge’s seat without their client. The judge Penney Azcarate he had given the ex-spouses an hour to reach the Fairfax, Virginia courthouse.

The feeling that the decision was in the pipeline was sharpened by the lunch break unusually short made by the jury: only 45 minutes. While waiting for the two protagonists of the libel trial that began over a month ago, the crowd thronging in front of the court has grown exponentially. The majority is always made up of supporters of the protagonist of Pirates of the Caribbean, who started camping from the early hours of the day regardless of the rain.