Elaine Charlson Bredehoft said Heard had 'excellent grounds' to appeal
Amber Heard's lawyer has said her client can "absolutely not" pay
Johnny Depp after a court on Wednesday awarded him more than $10 million in compensation.
Elaine Charlson Bredehoft appeared on the TODAY programme on Thursday where she unloaded a series of gripes about the case to presenter Savannah Guthrie, calling the trial a "zoo" and complaining that the jury had been influenced by social media.
Bredehoft said Depp's team had worked to "demonise" Heard and was able to suppress "an enormous amount of evidence" in the trial. Heard is now
planning on appealing and her lawyer said she had some "excellent grounds for it". Heard's team spoke out amid suggestions that the actor was now
unemployable.
https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/1532322619676033026
"A number of things were allowed in this court that should not have been allowed, and it caused the jury to be confused," Bredehoft explained.
The
Pirates of the Caribbean star sued Heard for $50 million over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, in which she identified as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Depp was not named, but argued that there was an implication he was the abuser.
The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages related to lost jobs and career opportunities and $5 million in punitive damages. The punitive damages payment was
later reduced to $350,000 as that is Virginia's legal limit.
The verdict effectively served as a rejection of Heard’s testimony that Depp had physically and mentally abused her, which Bredehoft said was "a horrible message".
"It's a significant setback because that's exactly what it means. Unless you pull out your phone and you video your spouse or your significant other beating you, effectively you won't be believed."
Bredehoft contrasted the verdict with Depp's libel suit against the Sun, which he lost in 2020. The tabloid had called him a "wife beater". She told TODAY that the jury was prevented from knowing this.
"So what did Depp's team learn from this? Demonise Amber, and suppress the evidence," she said.
"We had an enormous amount of evidence that was suppressed in this case that was in the UK case. In the UK case when it came in, Amber won, Mr. Depp lost."
Bredehoft went on to complain about the social media attacks on Heard, saying that despite the jury being told not to pay any attention to it, there was "no way they couldn't have been influenced by it, and it was horrible".
"It really, really was lopsided. It's like the Roman Colosseum how they view this whole case. I was against cameras in the courtroom, and I went on record with that and had argued against it because of the sensitive nature of this, but it made it a zoo."
While Depp won the case, Heard was awarded $2 million by the jury after it found one statement by Depp defamatory against her.
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