A Virginia judge has rejected a request by 36-year-old actress Amber Heard for a retrial in the libel case she lost to her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
Heard’s lawyers had asked Judge Benny Azcaret to overturn the jury’s ruling ordering Heard to pay Depp $10 million in damages, in addition to declaring the trial void, but the judge rejected their request.
Heard’s reason for requesting a retrial was that a member of the jury was not the man summoned by the court, but his son, in error because the names of the two men were similar.
Azcaret confirmed that “there was no evidence of fraud or a violation” and that the sworn member “had fulfilled the legal requirements to provide this service.”
“He was investigated, sat before the entire jury, deliberated on the case and reached a verdict,” she added.
On June 1, a jury found Depp and Heard responsible for defamation but sided with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star after an intense six-week trial in which they accused each other of violent practices.
The trial, broadcast live in front of millions of people, provided bitter and intimate details of the two Hollywood stars’ private lives.
The jury concluded that Heard had defamed Depp in an article she had published in 2018, in which she spoke of “sexual violence” she had been subjected to, and the commission’s decision required the actress to pay ten million dollars in compensation to Depp.
Depp, 59, filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife over an article she published in the “Washington Post” newspaper, in which she did not mention his name, but described herself as a “public figure exposed to domestic violence.”
The jury ordered Depp to pay Heard $2 million in damages.
