The legal back and forth between Aquaman star Amber Heard and her ex-husband, Fantastic Beasts star Johnny Depp, has taken another strange turn with Heard's defense lawyers splitting with the actress ahead of her upcoming libel trial.
Depp filed a claim against Heard early in 2019 for defamation after the actress accused Depp of abusing her physically during their tumultuous 18-month-long marriage. The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis had caused the trial to be delayed, but it was recently put back on to the trial docket in Virginia. The trial appears to be on track to move forward, just without Heard's defense team, which was headed up by Roberta Kaplan (it also included John Quinn, Julie Fink and Davida Brook).
The two actors, who met while filming The Rum Diary in 2011, married in February 2015. Heard filed for divorce in May 2016. She obtained a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) at the same time, stating that Depp had been physically and verbally abusive to her (recently, Depp's lawyers have accused Heard of using makeup to fake injuries to acquire the TRO). Their divorce settled in August of that year and the divorce was finalized in January 2017. However, in December of 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post where she once again spoke about Depp being physically abusive. Soon after, Depp filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against his former wife. It is because Heard's alleged libel occurred in the Washington Post that the trial will be held in Virginia instead of California, where both Depp and Heard live.
Roberta Kaplan is a prominent Los Angeles lawyer who is heavily involved in the Times Up movement, where she established the legal defense fund for that cause. Heard has signed off on the change and expressed that she has no problem with her lawyers dropping out. She will simply use local counsel in Virginia instead of Kaplan Hecker and Fink LL. Some of the reasons that Kaplan's firm gave for dropping out included “travel and logistics” becoming “more costly in light of the pandemic."
It is also not unreasonable for California lawyers choosing not to get involved in a lawsuit in another state, as Virginia's laws and procedures are presumably different than California's. However, it is clearly a bit surprising to see the lawyers back out of a suit at such a late date. Depp's lawyers believe that this move by Kaplan and her law firm to be curious, as his main lawyer, Adam Waldman (who is based in Washington, D.C.) released the following statement, "Ms. Heard’s lawyers, one of whom co-founded the #TimesUp Legal Defense Fund, have now apparently unhitched from Ms Heard’s long-disproven frauds. We intend to discover why."
Depp's lawsuit against Heard is separate from another defamation case Depp has pending against the British newspaper, The Sun, after that tabloid referred to him as a "wife-beater."
Via Cinema Blend.