FAIRFAX, Va. (CN) — An attorney for actress Amber Heard Thursday asked a Virginia judge to embrace findings from a U.K. court that Johnny Depp, Heard’s ex-husband, abused her on a dozen occasions.
If the conclusions of the U.K. court are embraced, Depp, 58, would not be able to contend that he was defamed by a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.
Depp’s lawyer, Ben Chew of Brown Rudnick, characterized the motion for dismissal as futile and frivolous. Heard’s attorneys, he added, “ignored the flashing red lights” in bringing it before the court and should be sanctioned. He argued that the U.S. and U.K lawsuits do not arise from the same conduct. The two cases are different: set in different countries with different disclosure and evidentiary rules. The “Aquaman” actress, he said, “fed selective evidence, much of it false, to the [U.K.] defendants.”
Chief Circuit Court Judge Penney Azcarate took the matter under advisement.
This is the third (??) time that Heard’s legal team have attempted to get Depp’s case thrown out of court. The first attempt, led by attorney Eric M. George of the Los Angeles law firm Browne George Ross, argued that Virginia is the wrong venue, and none of the relevant conduct occurred there. Chief Judge Bruce White, now retired, ruled against the motion.
The second attempt, led by noted civil rights attorney Roberta Kaplan, argued that Depp’s lawsuit should be dismissed because “the specific statements for which it seeks to impose defamation liability are not actionable as a matter of law.” White also ruled against it.