A month after winning the defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, Johnny Depp now has to pay the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) $ 38,000 in attorneys’ fees to comply with a subpoena that is used in the trial, one sentenced the judge.
During the trial, the ACLU demanded $ 86,000 from Depp as reimbursement for production costs, arguing that the reimbursement was for the “considerable expense spent in responding to onerous subpoenas issued by Mr. Depp for an underlying action in the which neither the ACLU nor any of its employees. are parties, “according to Law & Crime.
ACLU attorney Stephanie Teplin said the $ 86,000 was reasonable, as Depp would have asked for thousands of documents over a six-year period as evidence to use them in the defamation lawsuit. Depp’s lawyers filed a motion in early June, refusing to pay the $ 86,000.
Johnny Depp was ordered to pay the ACLU $ 38,000 in attorneys’ fees, a judge ruled Friday. Above, actor Johnny Depp pauses during his trial in a Fairfax County court on May 27 in Fairfax, Virginia Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images
On Friday, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that the ACLU should receive $ 38,000 from Depp, less than half of what was requested.
Depp’s attorney, Jessica Meyers of Brown Rudnick, said the ACLU’s original request was “exorbitant and unreasonable.”
When Newsweek contacted an ACLU spokesman he wrote, “We are pleased that the Court recognized that the ACLU complied with Mr Depp’s requests and did so at great cost.”
“They [ACLU] were responsible for drafting and publishing the opinion piece that the Virginia jury just found to be defamatory to Mr. Depp, ”Meyers said, according to Law & Crime.
A jury ruled largely in favor of Depp on June 2, finding that Heard defamed the Pirates of the Caribbean actor in the 2018 opinion piece he wrote with The Washington Post, in which the headline he said, “I spoke out against sexual violence and It has faced the wrath of our culture. That needs to change.”
During the six-week trial, the ACLU was found to have helped Heard draft and publish the opinion piece in The Washington Post, and the organization used Heard as an “ambassador for women’s rights. , with a focus on gender. based on violence “.
After she and Depp divorced in 2016, Heard publicly stated that she was giving her $ 7 million divorce agreement to a charity; $ 3.5 million would go to both the ACLU and Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. During Heard’s interrogation at trial, it became clear that he still had to give everything he had promised, but the ACLU stated that it continued to support Heard despite not receiving all of the $ 3.5 million.
While Depp now has to pay $ 38,000 to the ACLU, Heard has to pay $ 8.35 million to Depp for damages, which Heard’s attorney, Elaine Bredehoft, has publicly stated that the actress cannot be allowed. Heard has stated that he plans to appeal.