Law&Crime Sidebar - Depp Jury Verdicts, R. Kelly, Pitt v. Jolie

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

Were the jury’s verdicts in the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial inconsistent? Plus, prosecutors push for over 25 years in prison for R&B singer R. Kelly. Also, the next celebrity battle is underway between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Will it be the next Depp v. Heard? Jesse Weber breaks it all down with criminal defense attorney Karen Felicia Nance and entertainment lawyer Mitra Ahouraian.SUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Do you find that Mr. Depp has proven all the elements of defamation? Answer, yes. Do you find that Ms. Heard has proven all the elements of defamation? Sir, yes. Were the jury's verdicts in the Johnny Depp and Amber Hurd trial inconsistent? Prosecutors pushed for convicted R&B singer R. Kelly to spend over two decades in prison in anticipation of his formal sentencing.

Plus, celebrity battles don't end with Hurd and Depp as a new legal showdown is brewing between Brad Pitt and his ex-Angela Joe Lee. Is this going to be the next big courtroom drama followed by the country? Welcome to Seventh. Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. This is where we break down the biggest moments in the day's biggest cases. I'm Jesse Weber. All right, so a recurring question that we keep getting on law and crime is, were the

verdicts in the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial inconsistent? Well, let's recap it. So Depp won on each of his claims of defamation against Amber Heard. The jury found that each statement that she made in a Washington Post op-ed piece in 2018 were false and defamatory against the Pirates actor. Here were the statements. Number one, I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change.

Statement number two, then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture's wrath for women who speak out. And statement three, I had the rare vantage point of seeing in real time how institutions protect men accused of abuse. Now, for the jury to come back and find each of these statements to be defamatory, they're basically saying, Amber Heard, we don't believe you. We don't believe that you were a victim of sexual assault or any kind of domestic abuse. And yes, without speaking to the jurors directly and none of them have actually done interviews at the time of the show,

we can only guess as to what they were thinking. But you have to imagine that they probably believe Hurd made up her injuries, that she completely lied on the stand, that her sister wasn't telling the truth about witnessing physical abuse. that the supposed bruises on her face either were not real or they were a result of something else. I mean, they didn't even find the statements of Johnny Depp's attorney, Adam Waldman, that were calling Herds abuse allegations fake and a hoax to be defamatory. These were part of Herds' counterclaims. She lost on those, and the jury said, nope, they weren't defamatory.

So it surprised a lot of people when the jury came back and found in favor of one of Herd's counterclaims against Depp. They found that one statement from Depp's attorney, Adam Waldman, in the Daily Mail, was defamatory against Amber Heard, and that he made this statement while acting as an agent for Johnny Depp. So here's the statement. It was, quote, quite simply, this was an ambush, a hoax. They set Mr. Depp up by calling the cops, but the first attempt didn't do the trick. The officers came to the penhouses, thoroughly searched and interviewed, and left after seeing no damage to face or property. So Amber and her friends spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories straight under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911. So many people, understandably so, have been saying, well, jury, how can you say that Amber heard lied about being an abuse victim, but at the same time say that Adam Waldman lied about this being a hoax?

Well, let's break it down. So this statement is about May 21st, 2016. This is when Hurd alleges Depp attacked her. With that, Pica just pulls his arm back with the phone and throws it at my face. Hit me right in my, it felt like my eye. I put my head in my hands and immediately start crying. I said, you hit me with the phone. Johnny, you hit me.

He says, oh, yeah, I hit you, huh? I hit you, yeah? And he just feels like waxed me on top of my head, and just this heavy, ringed hand landed on top of my. My skull grabs me by the hair, yanks me up off the couch. I'm struggling to stand up. He was making this gesture around my face

to try to hold, expose my face to him and he was like yeah let me see how bad i hurt you let me see it let me see how bad i hurt you this time what if i pull your hair back what if i pull your hair back and he yanks my hair back i'm trying to prevent him from landing the blows to my face and trying to prevent my face from being exposed and i just remember this mocking taunt he was doing with me as he is yanking me around the room now it was only days after this that Herd ended up filing for divorce and obtaining a domestic violence restraining order from Depp or against Depp, but her friends, Rocky Pennington and Joshua

Drew, were there during this event. Now, they didn't actually observe any physical attack by Depp against Heard, but they did testify as to what they observed and saw and heard in the aftermath. In fact, Joshua Drew explains what happened when police arrived. what do you say to them to them if you recall when they arrived i greeted them at the door i walked them through ph3 to show them the damage showed them the broken glass uh they had already walked through the hallway over the gigantic wine stain throughout the entire hallway i took them through ph3 like i said to show them the damage i took them back out of the hallway showed them the dent in the door shaped like the bottom of a wine bottle in ph1 took them into ph5 to see uh broken picture frames smashed glass Raquel's jewelry and things like that shooting about the apartment and then I brought them back to

PH3 at which point they separated the Latino officer pulled Amber aside specifically to speak to her one-on-one the door was closed I was outside with the other officer so I can't say with any specificity what happened inside I don't know whether

anybody was in earshot I don't know whether anybody else was around they told me specifically it was one-on-one and I was outside the door with the mail officer and specifically my communication with him was asking what if anything could be done because we were obviously upset and his comment to me specifically was there's damage in these apartments her face is red if she wants to file a report we have enough here to go pick him up and pennington says that she saw amber heard crying she tried to calm depth down he actually hit her hands away, and then he left abruptly.

But she was adamant that she didn't frame Depp in any way. Where were you when you received the message from Amber asking you to come over to Penthouse 3? In either P5, pH 5 or pH 1. You weren't already in Penthouse 3 when you got that text? No. to the extent that there are allegations that you were lying in wait in penthouse three before johnny walked into that penthouse how do you respond to those that is not true

i will also represent to you miss pennington that um mr depth's lawyer um has been quoted as saying quote, Amber Hurd and her friend Rocky Pennington staged the May 21 crime scene to prove the abuse allegation against Johnny Depp. Is that statement true? No. Did you stage anything about May 21st, 2016? No. Okay, so how do we make sense of this?

Let's try to make sense of it. As we said, the jury didn't believe her. was telling the truth when she called herself a victim of abuse. So either the jury didn't believe that Depp threw a cell phone at heard or hit her or dragged her or alternatively, and I think this is kind of rare, maybe they believe that these events actually did happen, that Depp really did do this, but it didn't constitute domestic abuse. Again, without speaking to the jurors, we won't know.

I think the more logical conclusion is they think Hurd either lied or exaggerated the details of this event. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that Drew and Pennington were lying. Remember, they didn't actually witness Depp attack hurt. The idea that they staged a crime scene and got their story straight, that maybe that was just too much for the jury to believe. You know, there's one thing to talk about the actions of Heard, but this statement of Waldman was about other people, too.

So when you look at the statement, you have to look at it in its entirety. The jury perhaps didn't believe there was this kind of coordinated plan, orchestrated frame job of Depp by Heard and Drew and Pennington. So you can say that Heard wasn't telling the truth about debt, but at the same time, you can say Waldman wasn't telling the truth about these people staging a crime scene. And from that point of view, these verdicts actually can make sense, and they are actually consistent. and they also seem to represent that the jury took their time and carefully considered each claim. I say that because it would have been so easy to come back and say, Johnny Depp wins across the board. Amber Hurd loses across the board, but that didn't happen. And on a personal note, I have to say, I was in Fairfax County, Virginia reporting on this, I was in the courtroom.

I watched these jurors day in and day out, and from what I saw, they were highly attentive throughout the entirety of this trial. So my opinion, I believe they took the time to properly analyze each claim. All right. So we're going to move over from the civil arena now to the criminal. Let's go over to R. Kelly. So federal prosecutors in New York are recommending more than 25 years in prison for the disgraced and convicted R&B star. Now, you might remember that back in September 2021, a Brooklyn jury convicted Robert Sylvester Kelly of racketeering, child exploitation, and other charges. Now, the jury agreed that Kelly was guilty of every count that was alleged. They did find that prosecutors could improve with respect to three sub-accusations with

respect to one victim, but all in all, these were significant convictions. Now, prosecutors submitted a memo to the court, and in this memo, they're quoted as saying, With the aid of his inner circle, and over a period of decades, the defendant preyed upon children and young women for his own sexual gratification. They go on to say, in light of the seriousness of the offenses, the need for specific deterrence, and the need to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant, as well as the other factors set forth in federal law, the government respectfully submits that a sentence in excess of 25 years is warranted. but they didn't stop there because they also wanted to remind the judge that in their opinion R. Kelly is actually eligible for a life sentence in prison. Now, they didn't outright say that. They're going to leave it for the judge's discretion. But think about that, life in prison, possibly for R. Kelly. So what's the response? Well, R. Kelly has a new defense attorney,

Jennifer Bond Jean, and she is arguing that her client should only be sentenced to 14 to 17 and a half years in prison. She's quoted as saying, many of the enhancements suggested by the government and probation are simply unsupported by the evidence and the law. So the question becomes, what is going to happen to R. Kelly? Well, we're going to get a firsthand seat to this when he's sentenced on June 29th, but there's a lot that can happen between now and then. And we also can't forget that R. Kelly's troubles don't end in New York.

He has an upcoming trial in August out in Illinois for child pornography and obstruction charges. And out in Minnesota, he faces prostitution and solicitation charges of a minor. So his troubles are not ending in New York, but it does make you wonder, could the sentence in New York affect his other cases? Well, we have a lot of outstanding questions, and I have with me the perfect guest to answer some of these questions for me. I'm joined right now by a law and crime network regular, one of our favorites, criminal defense. Attorney Karen Felicia Nance. Karen, it's good to have you here on Sidebar. Thank you for having me, Jess. I'm glad to be here. The federal sentencing guidelines, right? These is sometimes complicated. You're dealing with a lot of numbers. It's complicated for the average person. What exactly are we

talking about with these guidelines? I mean, who is right here? Is it the prosecution or is it R. Kelly's attorney? Well, obviously, R. Kelly has an attorney that's going to argue whatever she can to get him the lowest sentence possible. But the federal system is different than the state. There's a lot less flexibility available. So when you're talking about life versus 25 years for somebody, anybody, but for someone at Kelly's age, 25 years is basically life in and of itself. And as you indicated, he's looking at the cases in Illinois and the case in Minnesota. So you have to determine as a whole whether there's conversation between the district attorneys, because you want to consolidate resources.

I mean, is it going to be beneficial for the taxpayers to go through these trials? Is there an offer that's possible in Illinois, in Minnesota that could, or maybe they won't go forward? Maybe that's what's going to happen with the other two cases or they can offer him something less than that. But his attorney is doing the best that she can in terms of making the most viable argument that she feels that she can succeed with. Will she be successful? I don't know. I don't think so. But 25 years versus life, there's not a lot of different. in that, I think, from where R. Kelly is standing now. Well, well, I'm surprised you're saying that. I'll tell you why I'm surprised you're saying that because I thought you treat each case

differently. Every victim deserves justice. And look at Harvey Weinstein. He was convicted in New York, didn't stop the prosecution of him in L.A., which is still going forward. So let's say, for example, R. Kelly gets, I'll even throw it out there. Let's say the judge says these are the worst crimes I've ever seen. You get life in prison out here in New York. You think that's going to stop the prosecutions out in Minnesota and out in Illinois? I think it depends on the amount of time that he gets. Obviously, if the prosecution is correct and that they could go after a life sentence, you look at the weight of, is it beneficial in terms of taxpayer dollars to go through a case

in Illinois and a case in Minnesota when somebody's already serving a life sentence, even if it's state prison versus federal, and we know that with federal court and federal convictions and sentencing, people tend to have a lighter way in terms of what they're subjected to in federal court, in federal prison, I'm sorry, is usually not as extensive or harsh as in state prisons. So I think that that's what's going to weigh. If he gets some a significant time in New York, then I think, you know, he could go ahead and plead guilty and get what's called a concurrent sentence, right, in Minnesota, in Illinois versus consecutive. which is after he would serve a life sentence, then he would serve more time.

So I think that's a determining factor as well. Well, let's talk about the numbers real quick, okay? So, again, his attorneys are pushing for, you know, I guess the minimum is 14 years. You have the prosecution pushing for over 25 years. The numbering guideline system, where do you think it's going to shake up? How many years do you think he's actually going to get out in New York? Well, my guess would be somewhere in between, right? I mean, we're looking at 14 to 18.

That's a request. but I mean they still have an uphill battle because he still has to fight the cases in Minnesota and in Illinois. So even if they quote win and get a lesser sentence of 14 or even 18 years, they still, I assume that same attorney or somebody from that team is going to represent him in the other two jurisdictions. Could the judge go lower than 14 years? I would think not just based on the fact that the attorney, the defense attorney is asking for 14. So she's obviously asking for what she believes is the lower. that the court can go. So I'm guessing that that's the lowest would be 14. And I want to ask you this

real quick in terms of what happens, whatever the sentence is, could R. Kelly, A, get, you know, get paroled, and B, could he appeal the sentence in any way? Well, for the first question, can he be paroled? I think that that's not really likely. He's going to have to serve a significant sentence in order to be eligible for parole. So since we don't know what that sentence is going to be, yes, it's possible he could get paroled after he serves the sentence. Is it possible or likely that he's going to appeal? I believe so. I mean, there's no reason for him not to appeal. And there are probably a lot of issues that this new attorney could point to that the other counsel in New York did not address. So that's something that she should definitely look into and probably has already started

the paperwork for an appeal. And I imagine we're going to hear statements from both sides. We'll wait and see. Karen Felicia Nance, thank you. Well, Johnny Depp and Amber Hurd are not and will not be the only battle of the celebrities we'll see because, in fact, we have a new showdown that's happening right now. Brad Pitt versus Angelina Joe Lee. Now, the question is, is this going to be the next Depp heard? Well, as you may remember, the Hollywood couple filed for divorce in 2016 and they were legally declared divorced in 2019.

Well, apparently, the conference. had once purchased a winery together called the Chateau Merval in France. They actually had their wedding there. Well, Pitt is alleging that Jolie, quote, sought to inflict harm on him when she sold her stake in the winery to Tenoot Del Mando, which is indirectly controlled by a Russian billionaire that has a stake in a vodka brand. So he's saying that Jolie needed his consent before selling her shares. And the fear, of course, being that this company that she sold her shares to is now going to take control of the whole vineyard.

And guess what? Guess what Pitt wants. Pitt wants to go to trial, trial by jury. He is suing on various breach of contract claims and abusive rights under the Luxembourg Civil Code, torturous interference and constructive trust. Now, I want to go over to People magazine, because according to People magazine, a representative or an inside source, with Angelina Jolie provided a comment to the publication saying, quote, Mr. Pitt's lawsuit against Ms. Jolie is an extension of a false narrative and the truth of this situation has still not been made public.

After the events that led to Ms. Joe Lee filing for divorce and her years devoted to caring for their children, Miss Jolie and the children have not been able to return to the property and she made the difficult decision to sell her stake in the business after making multiple offers to her ex-husband and knowing the business will be inherited by their children, she found a business partner with experience in the alcohol industry. Well, this is getting tense.

This is getting hot. This is getting heated. And I want to figure out who's right. What's going to happen? We'll join to me right now. I have a very special guest. Entertainment attorney Mitra Ahurian is with us. Mitra, good to see you.

Hi, Jesse. Good to see you. Thanks for making your premiere here on the Sidebar podcast. And what a better case to talk about than this one. So let's talk about Pitford. set for a second here. He's throwing out a lot of different legal claims. I know our listeners are probably wondering what is tortious interference, what is constructive trust, all in all. What exactly is he saying here? And what do you think the likelihood of success would be for him in pursuing

these claims? Yeah. So this is a juicy one with a lot to unpack. And it's so interesting. And no, no pun intended. No pun intended at all. But really, there's a lot to unpack here. there's a lot of claims. There's a lot of interesting players. You know, we have a purchaser who has supposedly has ties to Putin, which is why, you know, why Brad Pitt wanted a jury trial, undoubtedly, why he wants to take a trial. And, you know, this notion of betrayal. That's what this is really about. This is about him feeling like he put all of this time, passion, money into this thing that he was building for their family, for their children, and for a long time for her, this is a personal property for them. They got married on the property. They were raising

their kids there, and they had this business that they thought that they were going to pass on to their children. And so this is very, very personal. This is not a typical breach of contract case, although there's all these breach of contract claims. But then it also gets even more interesting because there's this whole hostile takeover element of it where presumably the owner of Stoli, who is this Russian oligarch, had tried to purchase their company multiple times.

And Pitt had said no, he didn't approve the purchase. And now behind his back, Jolie has now sold it to him and they're trying to take over control and make decisions and, you know, make it very difficult for Pitt to do what he's been doing for years, which has run this winery. But does he have a strong case? I mean, do you see this going to a trial? So, you know, I would say yes, he has a strong case just based on reading this 53 page complaint that is very well drafted. And there's a lot of good arguments there, you know, in there in terms of, you know, corporate law and the agreements that they had. They had an operating agreement that said that they needed a majority stake in order to approve any sort of sale.

They had these kind of implied contracts that he did, you know, all the things that he did to advance this business under the understanding that he would get to approve a sale or at least be able to buy her out at some point. So he's got some solid arguments, but this is something that is going to really come down to case law, and that's what makes it really interesting because there are laws of many jurisdictions. This happened across jurisdictions. So we have California for all of the tortious interference causes of action. We have a contract that was entered into in Luxembourg. We have international parties. We have, you know, Russian parties. So we have the properties in France. So there's potentially a lot of different areas of law. different laws that could potentially be applied, which is what makes it interesting. So I think just looking at it from the perspective of the U.S. lawyer and a California lawyer, I think he's got a strong chance. But, of course, I have not seen her reply. Well, you've seen cases like this before. So if she sold the interests without getting his consent and it's black and white in a contract

or their agreement that she's not supposed to do that, what's a defense? What is she going to say? There's something. There's something there or she would not have sold it. That's what I'm fascinated. with is there is something that her lawyers guided her into saying that you are okay to do this. And we don't know what that is yet. We're going to find that out soon when she follows her reply. But that's what's interesting is like she must have something because she would not be doing

something that is so risky that she knows that he doesn't want her to do, that he's going to fight without having some sort of legal leg to stand on. Well, now I'm going to ask you the, I don't even know what number, question the last year, the million dollar, the hundred million dollars, I don't know how much could be at stake here for these damages, but will this case, if it goes to trial and wherever it will go to trial, do you think that this could be the next Depp heard where Brad Pitt comes to court every day? Angelina Jolie comes to court every day. Now, thankfully, we're not talking about abuse allegations, but it's a really interesting legal issue nonetheless. Do you think

it's going to become like that? I don't see it becoming like that. I mean, this is more As personal as it is, this is a bit less salacious in the sense that we don't have these stories of abuse. Now, again, we don't have all the stories, so we don't know where things might go. But I don't get the feeling that either these two would really want to air their dirty laundry more than it already has to be out there. Excuse me. For Brad Pitt, like, this is a big deal to him because this is something that is his business

that he's put a lot of time and energy into. and he's about to lose it. He's about to lose control over it. So a little different than, you know, not that any is less more important than the other, but a little different than this is my reputation. Well, and let me ask you this. The fact that Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard had cameras in the courtroom,

won his case. Do you think that will open the door for more of these kinds of public lawsuits? We said at the beginning of that case, you know, the likelihood that he would win a defamation case was seemingly unlikely given how tough it is to win defamation cases with public figures. And he won. You think it could open the door to more of these kinds of lawsuits. And again, we're not talking defamation, but high public figures, lot at stake, have cameras, jury trials, things like that. Yes and no. And that's a fantastic question because historically, celebrities have been wanting to settle cases and get them out of the way

as soon as possible. So they're not in the press. Nobody wants cameras and the courtroom. So the fact that Johnny wanted cameras in the courtroom and got cameras in the courtroom is actually something that's very, very interesting. And I think that's an anomaly. And I think that most judges will think twice before they do that. But in terms of what this case did for celebrities, one, it showed that it's actually possible to win a defamation lawsuit. We know that that's so hard for celebrities to do because of that actual malice standard. They have to show that the person knew they were lying or had the reckless disregard for the fact that it might have been false.

That's very hard. Most celebrities don't even bother because they're like, well, I'm not going to meet this standard. How am I ever going to show that? And then the second thing that it showed was that you can actually come out of this, even with all the dirty laundry and all that,

but you can actually use the courts as a platform and very expensive lawyers to aid you in telling your narrative publicly. But of course, that would have to, that would depend on a judge actually allowing cameras in the courtroom, which again is very rare. And we actually think, We wonder if Amber Heardt's side is going to use that as a form to appeal that the judge allowed cameras in that courtroom.

But hey, listen, celebrities, they're just like human beings. And as long as we have celebrities, they're going to get into legal trouble. They're going to be legal issues. And they're going to be these kind of big public spectacles. Well, will they be? We'll have to wait and see. Mieter O'Hurion. Thank you so much for coming on.

Appreciate it. And welcome back to and welcome your first edition here of Sidebar. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. All right. Thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get. at your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.