By Tara Thompson
We are now on the 4th week of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial which is scheduled to last 5 weeks. Let’s go over each week so far.
Week one: Depp’s lawyer states in an opening statement. “Today he is associated with a lie, a false statement uttered by his former life wife… that falsely cast Mr. Depp, falsely and unfairly characterized, cast Mr. Depp as a villain, a man who would violently abuse a woman. By choosing to lie about her husband for her own personal benefit, Amber Heard forever changed Mr. Depp’s life and reputation.” Heard’s lawyers say the article she wrote wasn’t about her marriage or Depp, or the words she said, they said it’s about her freedom of speech and her right to say the things she did. They then moved on to call Depp’s sister/personal manager to the stand to testify for Depp, claiming she heard Heard call him an “old fat man.” After that they call Depp’s friend Isaac Baruch to the stand. “I’m not angry at anybody. I want the best for her, for her to take her responsibility, heal… and move on, move on and for Johnny, his family has been completely wrecked by all this stuff and it’s not… it’s not fair, it’s not right what she did and what happened for so many people, it’s insane how this happened.”
Next up to the stand was Depp and Heard’s marriage counselor via video. “She initiated fights, she started violence, she rose to the challenge if he started first… she in my opinion, that had been established throughout the relationship that she fought as hard as he did and he tried to de-escalate far more than I think she did.”
Week two: Week two consisted of Depp stating he never got to the point of hitting Heard or any women in his life, though Ms. Heard would strike out constantly. Their marriage counselor said it could begin with any little thing and Ms. Heard would escalate it to the point of attacking Mr Depp. This was soon followed by the talk of Ms. Heard leaving “human fecal matter” on Depps side of the bed. Soon after the allegation of Heard supposedly throwing a bottle of vodka at Depp surfaced, said to have severed the tip of his middle finger in the process.
Week three: Now this week has been the most evidential and telling week so far, with a statement from Depp’s security Guard and a Psychologist Depp hired for Ms. Heard.
Malcolm Connolly, Depp’s Security Guard, testified that there “would be scratches on his neck, maybe a fat lip in the corner, maybe a bruising on the eye socket.” He then continued to show a picture, claiming he had bruises and swelling on his face at the time the picture was taken.
On the 26th, Depp hired a psychologist who believes Heard has a personality disorder. “The results of Ms Heards evaluation supported two diagnoses, borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.” “Ms. Heard did not have PTSD and there were also pretty significant indications that she was grossly exaggerating symptoms of PTSD when asked about them…. So externalization of blame, a lot of inner anger and hostility, sometimes that anger among these people with similar scores, these people might have that anger kind of explode out. At times they tend to be very passive aggressive, they’ll be self-indulgent, very self centered, they could use manipulation tactics to try and get their needs met, very needy of attention, acceptance, approval…they can react violently, they can react aggressively, they will often physically prevent their partner from trying to leave if their partner wants to get space from all this intense emotion, and oftentimes they will be abusive to their partners.”
After she testified, the court played audio from a call between the couple after a fight with Heard addressing how she feared for her life at times while Depp addressed how he lost a finger. “A very large bottle of vodka severing my middle finger in Australia.”
Week four: This week they dove into Heards Op-Ed again which is how this whole thing came to be. “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for Women who speak out.” Soon after Depp’s agent was called to the stand and was asked about the significance it held, he said he knew it was about Depp and their relationship. When asked about the title of the Op-Ed he said he recalled being shocked at first and said it was the first time he had ever heard an allegation towards Depp regarding sexual abuse.
Depp’s agent said that from December 18th, 2018, the day the Op-Ed was published, and October 2020 he had been in no studio films. “After the Op-Ed it was impossible to get him a studio film which is what we normally would have been focused on in that time period.” Soon after Heard was taken to the stand where she told more stories of abuse from Depp. “I don’t know how much time passed but at some point he had broken a bottle up against my face, neck area, by my jawline and he told me he’ll carve up my face.” Heard said Depp said i’ll — kill you over and over again. The conversation then switches to talk of Depp “penetrating” Heard with said bottle. “Johnny had the bottle inside of me and shoving it inside of me over and over again.” After she told the court how Depp wrestled her to the ground with his knee in her back, she said he was punching her repeatedly and screaming at her “I — hate you.” Then she said he was punching her in the back of her head with his fist.
Another allegation Heard stated was Depp slapping her across the face when asking about a tattoo on his arm, she thought he was joking so she laughed and then said he slapped her after that. There was a phycologist they brough to the sand who said there was a number of incidents of sexual violence reported in the relationship that were documented very early on.
The most frustrating part of this case is that we can’t tell who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, there’s so much evidence on both sides and their stories are always so different from one another so you know one of them has to be lying but you just can’t trust either of them.
beniciapaw.com 
