Johnny Depp must be happy right now…
As you know, the Finding Neverland star has been seen as the winner of the defamation case with Amber Heard after the jury found that she defamed him in the 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post that chronicled her experience as a domestic abuse survivor. Subsequently, she was ordered to pay $15 million in damages before it was reduced to $10.35 million due to Virginia law. Meanwhile, Johnny was told to pay $2 million when he was found liable for claims his attorney made about Amber. However, that is not all he will have to pay!
Those who’ve followed his legal battle with Amber Heard know that the court case also focused on proving the actress lied about giving her promised donation of a $7 million divorce settlement to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. But in order to do that, Johnny had to subpoena the records from the nonprofit (who helped Amber with The Washington Post op-ed that was at the center of the defamation trial) to prove that she never handed over the cash.
Related: Dakota Johnson Wants People To Leave Her Out Of This Johnny Conspiracy Theory!
When the ACLU initially refused to turn over the documents, the two got into a heated exchange, leading the Pirates of the Caribbean alum to sue them. And they soon made sure that crucial evidence wasn’t going to come cheap!
Following his legal win against Amber, the organization demanded that Johnny pay a whopping $86,000 for the “considerable” amount of time they spent preparing and submitting docs for the case after being subpoenaed. They claimed execs had to comb through over 7,500 documents, eventually submitting 2,000 documents to his legal team. And according to court docs, the ACLU found that it took a lot of time and money to do all that work for him:
“The ACLU produced three witnesses – including its Executive Director – for over sixteen hours of depositions. Along the way, Mr. Depp rejected numerous compromises to minimize the burden and expense on the ACLU and its employees.”
The 59-year-old actor refused to pay that amount of money in court last month, calling it “exorbitant and unreasonable.” However, he was willing to shell out some sort of reimbursement for their trouble as long as the bill was reduced significantly.
Well, it looks like Johnny got his wish. According to TMZ, a judge has sided with the musician and ordered him to pay the ACLU only $38,000 instead. Wow! While the org did not get the full amount they wanted (nor that $3.5 million from Amber), at least this is better than nothing!
Reactions, Perezcious readers? Are you surprised that the ACLU got less than half of what they asked for from Johnny? Sound OFF in the comments (below).
[Image via MEGA/WENN]
