Law&Crime Sidebar - Depp v. Heard Day 13 Recap

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Jesse Weber recaps the biggest moments from Day 13 of the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial. A forensic accountant claims Depp lost tens of millions after Heard's op-ed piece. The actress tries to get the case thrown out. A psychologist explains Amber Heard is not the abuser, but the victim of extreme abuse at the hands of the Pirates of the Caribbean star.See 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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will 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. Hey everybody and welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime, where we recap the biggest moments in the day's biggest trials. I'm Jesse Weber. So we're talking the ongoing trial of Johnny Depp versus Amber Hurd out in Fairfax County, Virginia. And we just wrapped up day 13. A little refresher here. Depp is suing his ex-wife for 50 million dollars claiming defamation, namely that she falsely accused him of domestic violence in a 2018 Washington post op-ed piece and that that article ruined his life and his career. And she's actually

counter suing him for $100 million, saying he defamed her. when he orchestrated a public smear campaign against her, saying she made up her injuries and lied about him being an abuser. Now, today was the day that Johnny Depp officially rested his side of the case. It began in the morning with the continued tape deposition testimony of Aaron Falati, Amber Heard's former nurse, and this time it was Depp's turn for his attorney to question Falati. They had Falati admit that Hurd had reported she suffered from anxiety, bipolar disorder, insomnia,

an eating disorder, that she was codependent, that she was jealous, all to show that Herd was the unstable one in the relationship. And in terms of those alleged injuries to Hurd's face that Falati said she saw, Depp's team questioned how thoroughly Falati really inspected those injuries and whether a procedure that Hurd had to remove a cyst on her eyelid, that that may have caused the bruising. But after Falati, our first in-person witness was forensic accountant Mike Spindler. And he testified about the lost earnings that Johnny Depp suffered after the publication of the op-ed piece in 2018. What conclusions did you draw from your review? I concluded that. Mr. Depp suffered lost earnings of approximately $40 million. How did you reach that conclusion?

Well, there are really two main components to that. The first relates to the loss of the role of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirate Six film, so the loss related to the loss of that role in that franchise picture, it was $22.5 million based on testimony provided by Mr. Jack Wiggum. In addition, we looked at, yes. Did you do anything else with respect to Pirate Six? Well, we also calculated the net earnings that Mr. Depp would have received from that. Okay. And what did you base your analysis of Pirates Six on? Based on the testimony of Mr. Jack Wickham.

Now, you might be saying, wow, Johnny Depp lost out on $40 million because of Amber Heard's op-ed piece? Well, not so fast. So you are not offering any opinion or any testimony on whether those specific damages that you just discussed were caused by the op-ed, correct? That's correct. That's correct. And you're assuming for the purposes of your report that the damages that you're testifying about were caused by Amber's op-ed, correct?

Yes. So you're not looking at whether the article published in the UK in June 2018 calling Mr. Depple-wife-beater caused him the damages, correct? Correct. You're not looking at whether the lawsuit that he brought in the UK against the publisher of that article caused him those damages, right? Correct. You're not looking at any of the evidence that came out in that lawsuit about alleged

instances of abuse against Amber, correct? Correct. Correct. You're not looking at whether the consequences of Mr. Depp's drug and alcohol use have caused him the damages you're discussing, correct? Correct. You're not looking at whether the worsening performance at the box office of Mr. Depp's movies over time has caused them the damages that you're testifying about.

correct correct and I'm not acknowledging any of this being accurate I'm just saying that that wasn't part of my calculations so while it's possible that Depp lost out on Pirate 6 and other opportunities because of the op-ed even spinler couldn't definitively say that the op-ed caused this and he couldn't outline one single lost business opportunity he based his analysis off of what Depp was earning in 2017 a very lucrative years. So you could say maybe this was all a bit speculative. After Spindler, though, Johnny Depp officially rested his case after three weeks of testimony, but the drama didn't stop there because outside the presence of the jury, Hurd's team argued for a motion to strike. And that's basically

asking the court to throw out all the evidence presented by Depp that they haven't stated a legally sufficient case. It's basically like asking the court to dismiss it. When we talk about defamation, and when we talk about the Washington Post article, there are really three statements at issue that Depp is suing over. There are two in the body of the piece. One that says, 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. The second statement is, I had the rare vantage point of seeing in real time how institutions protect men accused of abuse. But then there's the third statement. And that third statement is the headline of the article. And it says,

I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath. Now, the problem with the headline is that Hurd's team argued that the actress didn't even write that, that it was the Washington Post who wrote that. But Depp's team says, well, her name's on the article. She endorsed it. She even republished it on Twitter, even though that hasn't come into evidence yet. So given all that, here's what the judge decided. So as to the second and third alleged defamatory statements, the motion to strike at this juncture, I view the evidence in light most favorable to the plaintiff

and reasonable inferences from the evidence to the plaintiff. And if there is a scintilla of evidence that a reasonable juror could weigh, then the matter survives a motion to strike. In this matter, there is evidence in the case that a jury could weigh that the statements were made by the defendant, that the statements were about the plaintiff, that the statement was published, that the statement is false,

and the defendant made the statement knowing it to be false or the defendant made it so recklessly as to amount to a willful disregard for the truth. The weight of that evidence is up to the fact finder. So the motion to strike is denied as the statement two and three. The motion to strike as a statement one, I'm going to take under advisement because if it's not a stipulation, I'm not sure what it is, but there seems to be an agreement that the tweet of Ms. Heard is part of the plaintiff's evidence, which is not an evidence at this point, so I can't rule on that statement whether or not it is just a tweet or if it's some sort of republication or something. I don't know because I haven't seen it yet. So as to the motion to strike

on statement one, I'm going to take an advisement because ruling on it now, it would be premature because I just don't have that evidence in the case. Okay. Okay. The case is going to proceed. It's going to move forward. But with the judge saying that she's going to take it under advisement, it's possible that she could end up striking the defamation claim as to the headline, possibly if it can be shown later on, that heard didn't write it or endorse it. And that's going to be Big, big loss to Johnny Depp. Either way, though, it was then time for Herd to start her case. Stay with us here at Sidebar, as we'll continue right after these words from our friends at the Court Junkie podcast.

Imagine spending 16 years in prison for a crime you didn't commit. Or imagine being on the jury at a trial where you have to decide whether a father murdered a family or whether it was a cartel hit. This is Gillian from Court Junkie, a podcast that examines criminal cases. and trials. Each week, I give you the facts of a new case and let you decide if you agree with the outcome. Make sure to subscribe to court junkie on Apple, Spotify, or any of your favorite podcast apps. Hurd's first witness was clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Dawn Hughes. Dr. Hughes examined Amber Hurd, and here was her conclusion. At the end of that process, considering all the data, did you arrive at any expert opinions? Yes.

All right. I'd like to start with your main expert opinions and then go through those. Can you please tell the jury what your main opinions were? So like I said, there are opinions embedded within them, but the main opinion is that Ms. Heard's report of intimate partner violence and the records that I reviewed is consistent with what we know in the field about intimate partner violence, characterized by physical violence, psychological aggression, sexual violence, coercive control, and surveillance behaviors. And what was the other main opinion that you have? The second main opinion was that Ms. Hurd demonstrated very clear psychological and traumatic effects or the exacerbation of trauma from those statements that Ms. Rudet made through his attorney. There were three statements that we evaluated to see how they affected her emotionally and psychologically. And it was my determination that they did. And did you arrive at any diagnostic conclusions? Yes, I did.

And what were those? I diagnosed Ms. Hurd with post-traumatic stress disorder. After weeks of Depp putting forward testimony that Amber Hurd was the abuser and he was the victim, this is Hurd completely reshaping the narrative. She would explain away all of the behaviors of Amber Hurd. She would explain that Hurd hitting Depp or yelling at him or refusing to cooperate with police during a domestic violence call or her suffering from anxiety or stress or depression. Even the fact that she stayed with Depp, these are all signs not of Herd Abusing Depp,

but rather her being the victim of Depp, a victim of domestic or intimate partner violence. And she would conclude that unlike Dr. Curry, who testified earlier in the case as a Depp witness, her doesn't have a personality disorder and that she did in fact suffer from PTSD. I should tell you that interestingly, Dr. Curry sat in the front row as Dr. Dr. Hughes testified. Awkward. Now, Dr. Hughes would outline some of this abusive behavior in graphic detail. On that incident when Kelly Sue was accused of hitting on Ms. Hurd, and they went back into the trailer, Mr. Depp performed a cavity search and ostensibly was looking for drugs and felt it acceptable to rip off her nightgown and stick his fingers up her vagina

to look for cocaine, thought that maybe she was hiding them there. And again, these incidents often happened in a drug-fueled rage. There was another incident in the Bahamas where when he got angry, he took his fingers and he put him in her vagina and moved her around violently in the closet. Again, an act of sexual violence. And as Dr. Hughes was describing all of this, Amber Hurd could be seen getting quite emotional on camera,

and that is something that we really, haven't seen too much from her since the start of the case. That's all we have for you right now on Sidebar, but make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Jesse Weber

and I'll speak to you next time. free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.