Amber Heard is asking a Virginia Judge to reconsider her guilty verdict during the turbulent defamation trial between her and her ex-husband Johnny Depp. Amber’s lawyers filed a 43-page document on July 1, claiming that the outcome of the case wasn’t sufficiently supported by the presented evidence.
The motion stated that the Pirates of the Caribbean star “proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms. Heard’s statements were actually false,” according to The New York Post.
Johnny sued Amber in 2022 over a 2018 op-ed piece the actress published via The Washington Post, claiming she was a victim of domestic abuse. Although she never explicitly named Johnny in the article, he claimed that the piece hurt his career significantly. Johnny then went on to win the trial, being given $10 million in compensatory damages.
However, Amber announced that she was appealing the verdict in late June of 2022 .”You don’t decline to appeal if you know you are right,” a spokesperson for Amber told The Los Angeles Times.
“There’s a binder worth of years of notes dating back to 2011 from the very beginning of my relationship that were taken by my doctor, who I was reporting the abuse to,” she told Dateline on June 17, 2022, referencing more evidence.
Divorce attorney Raiford Dalton Palmer told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY that he agrees with Amber’s choice, although he recommends that she remains cautious in the situation. “Appealing now makes sense. Her chance of success on appeal is a long shot. If she pushes the appeal, any chance of settlement will likely disappear. But if Heard is playing smart, the appeal will buy time and better position her for a settlement with Depp. Any deal would include a confidentiality agreement and a non-disparagement provision with a liquidated damages clause to keep her from repeating the defamatory statements and any other negative statements about Depp. He would buy her silence by releasing part or all of the judgment in my opinion,” he said.