The House Judiciary GOP reacted to the verdict reached by the jury in actor Johnny Depp’s defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
The Twitter account posted a GIF of a scene from Depp’s movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) June 1, 2022
The GIF garnered strong reactions from some:
Someone tell these morons Depp hates Trump so much he joked about killing him. He isn’t your guy and prob would cringe at this. https://t.co/BllClfZ5bY https://t.co/6iuyFBmVd9
— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) June 2, 2022
https://twitter.com/AmandaBecker/status/1532148038197817349
19 kids were shot dead at school a week ago. Go do your jobs. https://t.co/Aq1RIZv57V
— Ray Reed 🗳️ (@RayReedMO) June 1, 2022
https://twitter.com/ProfessorCrunk/status/1532121460277379072
Amber Heard was also awarded damages because her claims were found to be credible but don’t let it stop you guys from posting GIFs celebrating an abuser to remove all doubt that you just hate women. https://t.co/sWApmR1573
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) June 1, 2022
https://twitter.com/BillCorbett/status/1532101575857954819
The jury sided with Depp, awarding him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
Still, even though Depp was awarded $5 million, he will only receive $350,000.
The jury also found that Depp, through his lawyer Adam Waldman, defamed Heard.
She was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages.
Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, spoke out about the trial during an interview with “Today” on Thursday.
“Well, you know, really what happened here is it’s a tale of two trials. Johnny Depp brought a suit in the UK for the same case,” she said.
Bredehoft was referring to Depp’s libel case against British tabloid, The Sun, in 2020.
“The burden of proof was easier for him there, The Sun had to actually prove that it was true. And the court found there — and we weren’t allowed to tell the jury this — but the court found that Mr. Depp had committed at least 12 acts of domestic violence, including sexual violence against Amber,” Bredehoft said.
She continued, “So what did Depp’s team learn from this? Demonize Amber and suppress the evidence. 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 and Mr. Depp lost.”
When asked if Heard would appeal, Bredehoft responded, “Oh, absolutely [she will appeal]. And she has some excellent grounds for it.”
She added, “We even had tried to get the UK judgment in his case because he [Depp] already had his shot — and that’s one of the issues but also a number of the evidentiary issues. There was so much evidence that did not come in.”