12 h, may 18, 2021 y - DAILY MAIL EXCLUSIVE: Johnny Depp is suing the ACLU to force them to reveal whether Amber Heard ever donated the promised $7M

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NOTE: This article refers to the New York Court filings of 10 May 2021. It appears they received no attention and it is likely Johnny Depp’s PR arranged this Daily Mail Exclusive.

EXCLUSIVE: Johnny Depp is suing the ACLU to force them to reveal whether Amber Heard ever donated promised $7M divorce settlement to charity in effort to prove she lied during libel case

By BEN ASHFORD

Johnny Depp is suing the America Civil Liberties Union to see whether ex-wife Amber Heard ever fulfilled her promise to donate her $7m divorce settlement to charity, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Heard, 35, declared that she didn't want Depp's money after their explosive 2016 breakup and vowed instead to split the mammoth payment between two good causes.

But the actor's lawyers believe the altruistic gesture was a sham and have spent more than a year chasing the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union to find out how much they actually received from the actress.

Back in January DailyMail.com revealed a series of documents turned over by hospital bosses which suggested they received only $100,000 – way short of the promised $3.5m 'gift'.

The ACLU refused to cooperate but Depp has now ramped up the pressure by filing a motion to compel in New York Supreme Court to force them to comply with a string of subpoenas and end their 'outrageous stonewalling'.

Depp's lawyers want the docs to prove Heard was lying when she boasted about the giveaway, not only in media interviews but in evidence she gave to a London court.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star lost a bruising defamation case last year against the UK's Sun newspaper when a British High Court judge agreed the publication's depiction of him as a 'wife beater' was 'substantially true' based on blood-curdling accounts of their numerous bust-ups.

Giving evidence in a witness statement dated February 26, 2020, Heard stated: 'I remained financially independent from him [Depp] the whole time we were together and the entire amount of my divorce settlement was donated to charity.'

Judge Andrew Nichol cited the gesture while deciding the case in The Sun's favor, writing: 'Her donation of the $7 million to charity is hardly the act one would expect of a gold-digger.'

Depp, 57, belatedly raised the issue of the 'missing' charity payments when he challenged the ruling, his lawyers arguing the UK court was fed a 'calculated and manipulated lie, designed to achieve a potent favorable impression.'

A panel of judges said the new evidence wouldn't make any difference, however, and refused his bid for an appeal, saddling him with $840,000 in legal costs.

That won't stop Depp deploying the same arguments in a separate $50 million defamation suit filed in Fairfax County, Virginia, which accuses Heard of creating a 'hoax' account of being a domestic violence survivor for a 2018 newspaper article.

The Washington Post op-ed – headlined 'I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath, That has to change' - didn't mention Depp by name but he claims it wrecked his reputation and got him axed from the role of Captain Jack Sparrow.

In the new filing, the star's lawyers point to a September 2019 declaration from Heard in the Virginia suit that states that the idea for the article came from the ACLU itself.

Anthony Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, introduced Heard to a colleague, Jessica Weitz 'who in turn suggested the idea that [she] might write an Op-ed about how [her] experience exemplifies the issues faced by those who speak out about abuse and violence,' the filing states.

'Ms. Heard goes on to describe how she worked with the ACLU to draft the Op-Ed and the ACLU handled placing the Op-Ed in a newspaper.'

Depp's lawyers say that after Heard cited her charitable giveaway in sworn evidence for the London court action they initiated legal moves in the US to get to the bottom of her claims.

'Ms. Heard made multiple attempts to thwart Mr. Depp's discovery into her purported donation of her entire divorce settlement,' the filing states, describing how she tried and failed to have their subpoenas quashed in the Californian courts.

Heard eventually complied, as did the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, but the ACLU has so far only handed over a limited number of documents and emails.

These include a September 9, 2016 letter from Romero to Heard, on ACLU Foundation letterhead, thanking Ms. Heard for her donation of $350,000 as 'the first installment of your very generous pledge of $3.5 million', the motion reveals.

Also included is 'email correspondence between Ms. Heard and Mr. Romero from June 2017, reflecting that the ACLU had received a $350,000 donation from Ms. Heard, a $100,000 donation from Mr. Depp towards Ms. Heard's pledge, and an 'anonymous' $500,000 which appears from the correspondence to be from 'Elon'.

[Long Article continued via the links below]

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