Depp's legal team filed a petition in New York Supreme Court for the ACLU to hand over documents proving Heard stuck to her pledge, after it refused to cooperate.
Now a judge has granted 23 of the 24 requests in the actor’s ‘motion to compel’, meaning the organization must produce the paperwork relating to Heard’s charitable contributions.
The judge ruled Depp ‘has satisfied the initial burden of stating the circumstances of reasons underlying the subpoena… the ACLU has failed to demonstrate that the information sought it utterly irrelevant to the action…
‘Thus, for the reasons stated herein, the petition is granted and denied in part and respondents are ordered to comply with all subpoenas with the exception of… documents pertaining to Ms Heard’s role as a brand ambassador for the ACLU.’
Depp’s victory follows Dailymail.com revealing in January that documents turned over by Children’s Hospital Los Angeles suggested they received only $100,000 – way short of the promised $3.5m 'gift'.
The ACLU refused to cooperate but Depp ramped up the pressure by filing a motion to compel in New York Supreme Court to force them to comply with a string of subpoenas and end their 'outrageous stonewalling'.
Depp's lawyers want the docs to prove Heard was lying when she boasted about the giveaway, not only in media interviews but in evidence she gave to a London court.
In the new filing, the star's lawyers point to a September 2019 declaration from Heard in the Virginia suit that states that the idea for the article came from the ACLU itself.
Ms. Heard made multiple attempts to thwart Mr. Depp's discovery into her purported donation of her entire divorce settlement,' the filing states, describing how she tried and failed to have their subpoenas quashed in the Californian courts.