12 h, jul 22, 2021 y - COURTHOUSE NEWS Heard attorneys make third attempt to toss out JD defamation case

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An attorney for actress Amber Heard Thursday asked a Virginia judge to embrace findings from a U.K. court that Johnny Depp, Heard's ex-husband, abused her on a dozen occasions — slapping her, punching her, shaking her, shoving her, choking her, throwing bottles at her, dragging her by the hair and making her fear for her life.

If the conclusions of the U.K. court are embraced, Depp, 58, would not be able to contend that he was defamed by a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which Heard described facing pushback after coming out as a survivor of domestic abuse. Depp’s $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard, 35, would end in dismissal.

“What is the issue here?” asked Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Charlson Bredehoft of the firm Charlson Bredehoft Cohen and Brown, during a hearing today. “The issue is whether he [Depp] committed domestic violence.”

And the matter of whether Depp abused his wife has been adjudicated in the U.K., she said.

Depp's lawyer, Ben Chew of Brown Rudnick, characterized the motion for dismissal as futile and frivolous. Heard’s attorneys, he added, “ignored the flashing red lights” in bringing it before the court and should be sanctioned. He argued that the U.S. and U.K lawsuits do not arise from the same conduct. The two cases are different: set in different countries with different disclosure and evidentiary rules. The "Aquaman" actress, he said, “fed selective evidence, much of it false, to the [U.K.] defendants.”

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