Amber Heard asks judge to toss Johnny Depp defamation verdict

The US actress has implored a judge to throw out her losing verdict against Johnny Depp, as she levelled a bizarre allegation towards a jury member.

Amber Heard has asked a Virginia judge to throw out her losing verdict in the defamation lawsuit filed by ex-husband Johnny Depp, claiming the evidence doesn’t hold up.

Lawyers for Heard, who was found guilty of three defamation claims filed by Depp after a five-week trial which ended in early June, claimed in a 43-page motion filed on Friday that the judgment wasn’t supported by the evidence presented during the former couple’s blockbuster trial, New York Post reports.

The document claims Depp “proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms Heard’s statements were actually false,” the papers claim.

Amber Heard’s lawyers have asked the defamation verdict be entirely set aside. Picture: Evelyn Hockstein/AFP

Heard’s lawyers further raised questions about a jury member, known as Juror 15, who was on record as being born in 1945.

“[The juror] was clearly born later than 1945. Publicly available information demonstrates that he appears to have been born in 1970,” the motion read, suggesting they believe it was a fake juror.

In the motion, lawyers also claimed the jury did not have sufficient evidence to reason that Depp had lost movie roles as a direct result of Heard’s opinion piece, in which she claimed she was a victim of domestic and sexual violence.

Depp, 58, sued his ex-wife, 36, claiming she damaged his career in the 2018 Washington Post op-ed – with the jury deciding there was little doubt the reference was to the Pirates Of The Caribbean star.

Johnny Depp won his defamation trial against Amber Heard. Picture: Cliff Owen/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images

One of Depp’s lawyers, Benjamin Chew, emailed Courthouse News that Heard’s filing was “what we expected, just longer, more substantive,” The Guardian reported.

Judge Penney Azcarate previously suggested she isn’t compelled to schedule more hearings for the case.

Heard previously indicated she would appeal the decision.

“You don’t ask for a pardon if you are innocent. And, you don’t decline to appeal if you know you are right,” a spokesperson for Heard said in a statement in June.

This story originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission