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      Amber Heard’s Account of Abuse Challenged by Johnny Depp’s Lawyer

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      During tense cross-examination, Ms. Heard was asked why she had not presented medical records to back up her account of key incidents in which she said Mr. Depp struck her.A lawyer for Johnny Depp sought to discredit abuse accusations by his ex-wife, Amber Heard, during cross-examination on Tuesday, confronting her with audio recordings of the couple’s arguments as well as text messages and love notes that the lawyer suggested showed Ms. Heard to be an unreliable witness.As Ms. Heard finished her testimony at Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia, the lawyer, Camille Vasquez, challenged Ms. Heard’s assertions that she has only ever hit Mr. Depp as a defense. Ms. Vasquez played recordings from an argument several years ago in which Ms. Heard acknowledged, “I did start a physical fight,” and called Mr. Depp a “baby.”Ms. Heard testified that in that incident, she hit him only because he was trying to “bust” into the bedroom where she was trying to hide from him.“I accused him of being a baby for complaining about me hitting him when he was trying to get through the door that I was trying to barricade,” she testified on Tuesday.Ms. Heard, 36, is locked in a tense legal battle with Mr. Depp, 58, over competing defamation claims and has spent several hours during the trial sharing her accounts of repeated physical abuse throughout their relationship, as well as multiple instances of sexual assault. Mr. Depp has denied ever hitting or sexually assaulting her and has accused her of being the abuser in the relationship.Mr. Depp sued Ms. Heard three years ago over an op-ed, published in The Washington Post, in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Ms. Heard countersued Mr. Depp, saying that his former lawyer had defamed her by calling her accusations of abuse a hoax.During one part of her questioning, Ms. Vasquez challenged an account of the aftermath of an incident in Australia in 2015, in which, according to Ms. Heard, Mr. Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle and beat her while he was intoxicated on MDMA. Ms. Heard testified that after Mr. Depp’s attack, she had a bruised jaw, as well as cuts on her arms and feet from broken glass on the ground.“There is not a single medical record reflecting treatment for any of those injuries, is there, Ms. Heard?” Ms. Vasquez asked.“I didn’t seek treatment,” Ms. Heard replied.Mr. Depp has testified that he was the person injured that night when Ms. Heard threw a vodka bottle, hitting his hand and severing part of one of his fingers. Ms. Heard said he injured his finger by smashing a wall-mounted phone into “smithereens” while in a rage; Ms. Vasquez pointed to a lack of photographic evidence of the broken phone or of the injuries Ms. Heard said she suffered that night.Ms. Heard said documentation of the abuse was incomplete because she only started taking photos of her injuries “incidentally,” when she wanted to show a friend or her mother. She never envisioned a legal battle like this, she said.Ms. Vasquez also presented a love note that Ms. Heard wrote to Mr. Depp about two months after the Australia incident, which included the line, “I have seen in you the true bones of friendship and respect.”Ms. Heard said the couple had been in a “honeymoon period” at the time.As in Mr. Depp’s testimony, Ms. Heard’s cross-examination involved an airing of insults she had hurled at him during arguments. In one recording, Ms. Heard can be heard calling him a “sellout” and a “joke.” She acknowledged on the stand that she called him “horrible, ugly things,” noting that he called her names, too. (In her lawyers’s cross-examination of Mr. Depp, they brought forward several text messages to other people in which he referred to Ms. Heard using insults and obscenities, including calling her a “worthless hooker.”)Johnny Depp has argued that his career was damaged by what he characterized as a false assertion by Ms. Heard that he had been violent toward her. Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski/EPA, via ShutterstockCentral to the case is the op-ed, and Ms. Vasquez sought to establish that, even if Ms. Heard did not mention Mr. Depp by name in the piece, it was clear that the subject was their relationship. Ms. Heard confirmed that when she said she became a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” she was referring to getting a temporary restraining order against Mr. Depp in 2016.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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      Amber Heard Recounts Unraveling of Marriage to Johnny Depp

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      The defamation trial involving the actors is entering a new stage as Ms. Heard faces aggressive cross-examination from Mr. Depp’s lawyers.Amber Heard testified on Monday in the defamation case brought by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, that she filed for divorce and for a restraining order against him in 2016 after two blowout fights that made her fear for her safety.“I knew I had to leave him,” Ms. Heard testified. “I knew I wouldn’t survive it if I didn’t.”But after detailing the collapse of their marriage for several hours, Ms. Heard faced aggressive cross-examination from a lawyer for Mr. Depp, Camille Vasquez, who sought to discredit her account that the actor had beaten her repeatedly throughout their relationship.Citing incidents during which Ms. Heard testified that she had been struck, Mr. Depp’s lawyers displayed photos taken at the time that show no apparent bruising or swelling. Ms. Heard testified that she covered the injuries with makeup so the abuse would remain hidden after many of the incidents.“You should see what it looked like underneath the makeup,” Ms. Heard said of one photo she described as being taken the night after Mr. Depp hit her so hard that she thought her nose had been broken.As the trial at Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia entered its final two weeks, Ms. Heard spent the opening hours of the day finishing her testimony before facing off with Mr. Depp’s legal team, who questioned whether her accounts of spousal abuse were accurate and whether she had actually donated the money she secured through her divorce to charity, as she had pledged.Her testimony included her account of the first time the issue of spousal abuse by Mr. Depp came into public view, in May 2016, after paparazzi photographed Ms. Heard at a California court, where she obtained a temporary restraining order against him. She had what appeared to be a bruise under one eye, and she told the court then, in a filing, that Mr. Depp had hurled a cellphone at her during an argument about a week earlier, hitting her in the face.“The violence was now normal and not the exception,” Ms. Heard told the jury on Monday.Mr. Depp, 58, sued Ms. Heard, 36, for defamation after The Washington Post published an oped by Ms. Heard in 2018 in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article did not mention Mr. Depp by name, but he has asserted that it clearly alluded to their relationship. The jury is also considering a countersuit filed by Ms. Heard, which accuses Mr. Depp of defaming her when his former lawyer made statements saying her accusations were a hoax.In addition to repeated physical abuse, Ms. Heard has described multiple instances of sexual assault by Mr. Depp. He has accused her of being the aggressor in the relationship and denied ever hitting or sexually assaulting her.Ms. Heard testified on Monday about one confrontation that occurred after Mr. Depp missed her birthday dinner in April 2016 because he had a business meeting. When they were alone later that night, he initiated a physical fight, she said, and shoved her, grabbed her by the hair and threw a bottle of champagne at her, missing her.Ms. Heard said she did not see her then-husband for about a month after that. But in May 2016, when Mr. Depp visited the penthouse in Los Angeles where Ms. Heard was staying, the couple ended up arguing about Mr. Depp’s accusation that she or a friend had defecated in the couple’s bed as a “prank.” Ms. Heard called the accusation a “delusion,” attributing the feces to one of the couple’s dogs.During the confrontation, Ms. Heard said, she was on the cellphone with a friend, who, overhearing the commotion and screaming, warned Ms. Heard that she wasn’t safe. That prompted Mr. Depp, she said, to grab the phone from her.“He pulls his arm back with the phone and throws it at my face,” she said. “I put my head in my hands and immediately start crying.”According to court papers, the friend on the phone called 911, but when the police arrived, Ms. Heard refused to cooperate.“I wanted to protect Johnny,” she testified on Monday. “I didn’t want him to be arrested.”But two days later, she said, she filed for divorce, and several days after that, she filed for the restraining order because she was experiencing extreme anxiety and wanted an assurance that Mr. Depp would not return to where she lived. (She agreed to drop a request for a permanent restraining order as part of their divorce agreement.)Johnny Depp, waving to observers in the gallery in the courtroom on Monday.Pool photo by Steve Helber via ReutersMr. Depp’s account of those two incidents was markedly different during his testimony earlier in the trial. He said he had an important meeting about his finances and was late for Ms. Heard’s birthday party, prompting her to lash out at him later that night. He testified that she punched him in the face twice before he left the building and stayed elsewhere. His mother died while the couple was separated, and when he called Ms. Heard to tell her the news, he also told her he planned to file for divorce, Mr. Depp testified.“Somebody had to call it,” he acknowledged.When he returned to the penthouse to pick up some of his belongings, Mr. Depp testified, the couple got into an argument about the feces that an employee had found in the bed the previous month. Mr. Depp said he did not throw the phone at her, but rather, he “flopped” it onto the couch. He accused Ms. Heard of faking that she had been injured during the confrontation in order to convince her friends that she was in some peril.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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      Amber Heard Accuses ‘Belligerent’ Johnny Depp of Sexual Assault

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      With graphic depictions of what she described as physical attacks, she sought to counter the actor’s testimony that she had been the aggressor.Amber Heard described in graphic detail on Thursday how, she said, her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, beat and sexually assaulted her during a trip to Australia, during which she experienced the worst fear of her life.Ms. Heard, testifying in the defamation case filed against her by Mr. Depp, said the couple took the trip in 2015, shortly after they were married, because the actor was needed for the filming of the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. But, while there, Mr. Depp took MDMA, became “belligerent” and attacked her, hitting her in the face, throwing her across the room, ripping off her nightgown and grabbing her by the neck, she said.“I’m looking in his eyes and I don’t see him anymore,” Ms. Heard, who sometimes broke into sobs during her testimony, said. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”Ms. Heard described the encounter during her second day of testimony in Fairfax County Circuit Court, where she and Mr. Depp are locked in a tense legal battle over just who defamed whom. In his own testimony, Mr. Depp denied hitting Ms. Heard and denied sexually assaulting her, accusing her of being the aggressor in the relationship.The incident in Australia has emerged as a key point of contention in a trial that has focused on competing, and contradictory, accusations of spousal abuse. At some point during the confrontation Ms. Heard described, part of the middle finger on Mr. Depp’s right hand had been severed, but the couple has presented differing accounts of how it actually happened and who was to blame.Ms. Heard, 36, said Mr. Depp, 58, was angry about several issues, including his suspicion that she had been having an affair with another actor and his contention that she had been unkind to his sister. She said his attack escalated from vulgar name-calling to threats and violence. In an argument over his drinking, she said, she had thrown a liquor bottle on the ground.“That really set him off,” she said.Ms. Heard testified that during the fight, Mr. Depp threw bottles at her, missing, and that later he sexually assaulted her with a bottle. She said that, though she could not see the bottle at the time, she was later able to deduce what the object had been.According to Ms. Heard’s account, Mr. Depp severed his finger when he picked up a phone from the wall and smashed it into pieces. She said that after the attack she returned to that area of the house and found messages written on the walls and objects in the room, in blood and paint.During his testimony earlier in the trial, Mr. Depp said his finger had been severed when Ms. Heard threw a handle of vodka at him that had shattered on his hand. He said she had been upset about a meeting she had with a lawyer over a potential postnuptial agreement, and described her following him around the house, screaming obscenities and “hammering me with brutal words.” He testified that when she discovered him drinking, she hurled a bottle of vodka at him, which missed, and then another, which made contact.As his hand bled “like Vesuvius,” Mr. Depp testified, he experienced a “nervous breakdown” and used his bloody finger to write on the walls messages that “represented lies that she told me.”Mr. Depp’s lawsuit seeks $50 million in damages and cites what it describes as damage done to his reputation and career by an op-ed piece written by Ms. Heard.Pool photo by Jim Lo ScalzoDuring her first day of testimony on Wednesday, Ms. Heard testified that Mr. Depp physically abused her throughout their relationship, recalling that his anger was triggered by suspicions she was being unfaithful, which would not abate despite her repeated denials.In his testimony, Mr. Depp had denied ever hitting Ms. Heard and accused her of being the person who resorted to violence by punching him, throwing objects at him and, once, kicking a bathroom door into his head. In court papers, Ms. Heard denied hitting Mr. Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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      Depp’s $22.5 Million ‘Pirates’ Deal Collapsed After Op-Ed, Manager Testifies

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      Mr. Depp’s talent manager said the actor had been up to play Captain Jack Sparrow again until his ex-wife, Amber Heard, wrote an op-ed saying she was a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”Johnny Depp’s talent manager testified on Monday in the actor’s defamation trial that Mr. Depp lost a $22.5 million deal to star in a sixth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie after his ex-wife, Amber Heard, published an op-ed in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”The exact timing of when Mr. Depp was cut from the “Pirates” franchise has become a pertinent question in the trial because Mr. Depp’s lawsuit against Ms. Heard claims that her op-ed, published by The Washington Post in December 2018, “devastated” his reputation and career.Although the op-ed does not mention Mr. Depp by name, he has argued that it clearly referred to their relationship. Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp of assaulting her repeatedly during their relationship, which Mr. Depp denies.At Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia, the talent manager, Jack Whigham, testified that the actor had a verbal agreement with Disney to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a proposed sixth film, but that in early 2019, it became clear that Disney was “going in a different direction.”“After the op-ed, it was impossible to get him a studio film,” testified Mr. Whigham, who has represented Mr. Depp since 2016.Lawyers for Ms. Heard have argued that it was not the actress’s op-ed that undermined Mr. Depp’s career but rather his own actions that led to bad publicity, seeking to prove during cross-examination of Mr. Whigham that Mr. Depp had, in fact, lost the “Pirates” job before the article was published.Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, a lawyer for Ms. Heard, pointed to a previous deposition by Mr. Whigham in which he said that it had been the fall of 2018 — before the op-ed was published — when he came to understand that it was becoming unlikely that Mr. Depp would appear in the next “Pirates” movie.Mr. Whigham testified that around that time, Disney had not yet made a decision about whether Mr. Depp would appear in the movie and it was “trending badly,” but he and the film producer Jerry Bruckheimer were still seeking to convince the company to keep Mr. Depp in the franchise.“We had hope,” Mr. Whigham said, “and it became clear to me in early 2019 that it was over.”In the op-ed, Ms. Heard asserted that her own career had been affected by becoming a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” saying that she was dropped as the face of a fashion brand and a movie had recast her role.The idea for the op-ed came from the American Civil Liberties Union, and a communications department employee from the nonprofit organization drafted the article, according to earlier testimony from Terence Dougherty, general counsel for the A.C.L.U. Initially, the op-ed draft referenced Ms. Heard’s relationship with Mr. Depp directly. But those references were later edited out after back-and-forth between A.C.L.U. personnel and Ms. Heard’s lawyers about a nondisclosure agreement associated with the couple’s divorce, Mr. Dougherty testified.Aside from discussions about the op-ed on which Mr. Depp’s lawsuit is based, much of the trial has focused on diverging accounts of physical abuse in Ms. Heard and Mr. Depp’s relationship. Mr. Depp testified that he has never hit Ms. Heard and that she was the aggressor, accusing her of punching him in the face and kicking a bathroom door into his head. Ms. Heard, who has not yet testified in the trial, has said in court papers that she never hit Mr. Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister, and that Mr. Depp tended to perpetrate violence against her when he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.Amber Heard has countersued Mr. Depp, asserting that his former lawyer defamed her by referring to her allegations as a hoax.Pool photo by Steve Helber/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Monday, Ms. Heard’s lawyers sought to undermine Mr. Whigham’s claim that Mr. Depp had a formal deal for the sixth “Pirates” movie at all.“Do you have any explanation for why there exists nothing — no piece of paper — nothing suggesting that Mr. Depp ever had a deal with Disney for ‘Pirates 6’?” Ms. Bredehoft asked.Mr. Whigham said it was not unusual for an actor to have a verbal agreement for a movie that is later put into writing.Ms. Bredehoft also pointed to other possible precursors to Mr. Depp’s reputational decline other than the op-ed, citing a headline from The Sun newspaper in Britain that called Mr. Depp a “wife beater.” That article was published in April 2018, she pointed out, and Mr. Depp sued the newspaper for it in June 2018 — both months before Mr. Whigham’s recollection of Disney’s declining interest in Mr. Depp for “Pirates.”(Ms. Heard’s potential witness list includes Tina Newman, a Disney executive.)Ms. Heard’s legal team has referred repeatedly to the defamation trial in Britain that arose from that lawsuit. But it appears that the team has been restricted from mentioning the outcome of the case, in which a judge in London ruled against Mr. Depp and found that there was “overwhelming evidence” that he had assaulted Ms. Heard repeatedly during their marriage. More

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      Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard: What We Know

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      Mr. Depp has sued Ms. Heard, his ex-wife, on grounds that she defamed him in an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post.The defamation trial in Virginia between the actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has become a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship, with both sides accusing the other of repeated domestic abuse in what was an unquestionably tumultuous marriage.Before a seven-person jury in Fairfax County Circuit Court, lawyers have questioned witnesses about the events of what has been described as a whirlwind romance that started on a movie set and soured into a barrage of fights and physical confrontations — the details of which vary widely depending on the account.Mr. Depp, 58, sued Ms. Heard, 35, for defamation after she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post referring to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” After more than a year of legal sparring, Ms. Heard then countersued Mr. Depp, alleging that he defamed her when his former lawyer released statements saying her allegations of abuse were a hoax.Many of the allegations being aired in the courtroom have already been heard in a British case — which Mr. Depp lost — in which the actor sued The Sun newspaper for printing a headline that called him a “wife beater.”The trial, which started with opening arguments on April 12, is expected to last about six weeks.Why is Mr. Depp suing Ms. Heard?Mr. Depp’s lawsuit, filed in 2019, revolves around the 2018 op-ed written by Ms. Heard titled, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”The op-ed does not mention Mr. Depp by name, but in it, Ms. Heard wrote that two years before the article’s publication, she became a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”In 2016, Ms. Heard was granted a temporary restraining order after showing up to a California court with a bruised face, writing in an application for the order that Mr. Depp had thrown a phone at her face at close range. (The actor denies this.)In the application, Ms. Heard wrote that Mr. Depp had been verbally and physically abusive to her throughout their relationship, detailing a recent incident in which she said he grabbed her by the hair and violently shoved her to the ground. (Mr. Depp wrote in court papers that this was a lie and that she was the one who punched him in the face that night.)Mr. Depp’s lawsuit asserted that Ms. Heard’s abuse allegations were an “elaborate hoax” that cost the actor his career and reputation.“Mr. Depp brings this defamation action to clear his name,” the actor’s lawsuit said.What did Ms. Heard’s op-ed in The Washington Post say?The op-ed says that after she became a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” she started to experience a backlash to her career.“Friends and advisers told me I would never again work as an actress — that I would be blacklisted,” she wrote. “A movie I was attached to recast my role. I had just shot a two-year campaign as the face of a global fashion brand, and the company dropped me.”She wrote that she saw “in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” Ms. Heard was identified in the op-ed as an ambassador on women’s rights for the American Civil Liberties Union, and in court papers, Ms. Heard said the A.C.L.U. suggested that she write the article and submitted it.Although the trial has become a sprawling inquiry into the couple’s marriage, one of Ms. Heard’s lawyers, Ben Rottenborn, tried to impress upon the jury in open arguments the idea that, ultimately, the case rests on “one piece of paper” — this op-ed.Ms. Heard is countersuing, claiming Mr. Depp had conspired with a lawyer to “attempt to destroy and defame Ms. Heard in the press.”Pool photo by Jim Lo ScalzoWhy is Ms. Heard suing Mr. Depp?The jury is simultaneously considering Ms. Heard’s countersuit against Mr. Depp, which was filed in 2020.Ms. Heard’s defamation claim is against Mr. Depp, but the statements it centers on came from his former lawyer, Adam Waldman, who told the British tabloid The Daily Mail that the actress’s allegations were an “abuse hoax.”Her lawsuit claims Mr. Depp has “authorized and conspired” with Mr. Waldman, who was acting on the actor’s behalf, to “attempt to destroy and defame Ms. Heard in the press.” (Mr. Waldman was not named as a defendant.)What has Mr. Depp said in his testimony?So far, Mr. Depp has testified that he had never struck Ms. Heard, nor any other woman. Instead, he asserted that Ms. Heard was the aggressor in the relationship, engaging in angry tirades and “demeaning name-calling” that would often escalate into physical violence.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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      Johnny Depp, Accused of Spousal Abuse, Says Ex-Wife Was the Aggressor

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      The actor testified in a defamation case that he filed against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who has said he often struck her during their relationship.The actor Johnny Depp took the stand for the second day on Wednesday to describe his turbulent marriage to the actress Amber Heard, whom he has sued for defamation, accusing her of “demeaning name-calling” that often escalated into physical violence.“It could begin with a slap, it could begin with a shove, it could begin with throwing a TV remote at my head, throwing a glass of wine in my face,” Mr. Depp told a jury at Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia.Ms. Heard has accused Mr. Depp in court papers of repeatedly assaulting her throughout their relationship, from slapping and kicking to dragging her across the floor by her hair and grasping her throat, making her fearful that he would kill her.But over the past few years of legal wrangling in the United States and Britain, Mr. Depp has maintained that Ms. Heard was the one who was violent toward him. In testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Depp denied ever striking Ms. Heard or any woman.“She has a need for conflict, she has a need for violence,” he said of Ms. Heard. “It erupts out of nowhere.”Ms. Heard denied in court papers that she had ever struck Mr. Depp except in self-defense or in defense of her sister.Mr. Depp has sued Ms. Heard for defamation over an op-ed she wrote in 2018 in which she said she was a ​​“public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article did not mention Mr. Depp’s name, but he testified that the time-frame reference in the op-ed was clearly in reference to their marriage, which lasted less than two years.The seven-person jury will also consider Ms. Heard’s countersuit, which asserts that Mr. Depp defamed her when his former lawyer made statements saying that her allegations of domestic abuse were a hoax.During more than five hours of testimony on Wednesday, the jury heard snippets of recorded arguments between the couple. Those included audio of Mr. Depp confronting Ms. Heard about kicking a door into his head the previous night and Ms. Heard asking, “Why are you obsessing over the fact that I can’t remember it the way you remember it?”During his testimony, Mr. Depp strove to present his side of several incidents that have surfaced as their problems in their relationship became public, including the time Mr. Depp’s middle finger was severed. The injury occurred in 2015 while the couple was in Australia for the filming of the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.Mr. Depp told the jury that, at the time, Ms. Heard was angry about a meeting she had with a lawyer about a potential postnuptial agreement and threw two vodka bottles at him, one of which missed while another shattered into his hand, causing his finger to bleed “like Vesuvius.” He testified that he then experienced a “nervous breakdown” and used his bloody finger to write on the walls messages that “represented lies that she told me.”Ms. Heard, who is expected to take the stand later in the trial, has given a very different account of the incident in Australia, writing in court papers that Mr. Depp became violent with her during an argument about his drug use. She has said that at one point he grabbed her by the neck and collarbone and slammed her into a countertop, then hit her with the back of his hand and slammed a phone against a wall until it “smashed into smithereens,” injuring his finger.Upon her return to Los Angeles, Ms. Heard wrote in court papers that “I had a busted lip, a swollen nose and cuts all over my body.”Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 6In the courtroom. More

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      A Film Tries to Make a Difference for Domestic Violence Survivors

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      “And So I Stayed” examines how the courts treat women who kill their abusers. The movie played a role in one case that resulted in freedom after a conviction.In 2013, Tanisha Davis, a 26-year-old woman from Rochester, N.Y., was sentenced to 14 years in prison for killing her boyfriend, at whose hands she suffered, she said, nearly seven years of abuse, including choking, death threats and a beating on the night he died. The judge agreed that she was a victim of domestic violence but said her response did not merit leniency. “You handled the situation all wrong,” he told her. “You could have left.”In 2021, because of a new law that allows survivors of domestic violence more nuanced consideration in the courts, the same judge released Davis, thanks in part to a documentary that helped frame her case.It’s not uncommon for documentary projects to have an impact on legal proceedings, once they’ve found an audience and built public attention. But the film that helped Davis, “And So I Stayed,” was not yet released — it wasn’t even finished — when the filmmakers, Natalie Pattillo and Daniel A. Nelson, put together a short video for the court, describing her life.“You could see the strength of the ties she had to her family and the strength of the support she would have” if she were released, said Angela N. Ellis, one of her lawyers. The prosecutor and judge both mentioned watching the footage when they agreed, in March, to set her free.In her eight years in prison, Davis, 34, spoke to her son, now 15, every day. Now that she’s home, “I can just call him in the next room,” she said. “I can’t even explain that joy. I cry happy tears all the time.”For the filmmakers, it was an unexpectedly bright ending to an often heartbreaking and troubling film. “And So I Stayed,” which will have its premiere Saturday at the Brooklyn Film Festival (viewable online through June 13), is personal for Pattillo, who is a survivor herself and whose sister was killed by a boyfriend in 2010. The documentary grew out of her thesis project at Columbia Journalism School, where she met Nelson, her co-director.The filmmaker Natalie Pattillo is a domestic-violence survivor.Gwen Capistran“I didn’t realize how common it was, the gravity of women being incarcerated for defending themselves or their children,” Pattillo said. “Once I found out, I couldn’t stop reporting,” in an effort to show just how misunderstood, and punitive, these cases are within the justice system.The film’s first focus was Kim Dadou Brown, who served 17 years in prison for killing her abusive boyfriend. She became an advocate, traveling to Albany to needle New York lawmakers about the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, the long-simmering legislation that eventually helped free Davis. Introduced in 2011, it was finally passed in 2019, after Democrats flipped the State Senate.The act is among the few laws in the country that grant judges more leniency in sentencing domestic violence victims who commit crimes against their abusers. It follows a growing, research-backed understanding of the patterns of abusive relationships, and the unique hold they have on people within them.“Leaving is the hardest part,” and the most dangerous, Dadou Brown said. “I thought that all men hit, and so I stayed with mine, so I knew which way the blows would come.”After Dadou Brown, a Rochester native and former health-care worker, was paroled in 2008, she volunteered with survivors and crisscrossed the state for rallies — even when money was tight because her felony status made jobs hard to find, she said. With 17 earrings (one for each year of her incarceration) and her signature false eyelashes, “she’s just a force,” Pattillo said. “It’s pure tenacity. That’s Kim.”Dadou Brown has become a fierce advocate for the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, which was finally passed in 2019.Libby March for The New York TimesWhen the bill passed, there was elation among its supporters and the filmmakers. But they kept their cameras rolling.One case that was considered a surefire test of the act was that of Nicole Addimando, a young mother of two in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who in 2017 fatally shot Christopher Grover, her live-in boyfriend and the children’s father. The film includes police camera footage of that night, when she was found disoriented and driving around in the wee hours, her 4- and 2-year-olds in the back seat.Her case made national headlines because of the severity of the abuse she said she endured: bites and black eyes; bruises and burns to her body, including while she was pregnant, that were documented by medical professionals; rapes that Grover videotaped and uploaded to a porn site. In the film, a social worker calls it not just assault, but “sexual torture.” In 2020, Addimando was sentenced to 19 years to life for second-degree manslaughter; the judge denied that the survivors justice act was applicable.“I felt like we failed her,” said Dadou Brown, who was at the sentencing.The film looks at the case of Nicole Addimando, who was sentenced to 19 years to life for killing her abuser. A judge ruled that the new law didn’t apply to her.Daniel A. NelsonIn the film, Addimando is heard mostly as a voice on the phone from prison; in one call, her mother tries to console her that at least she’s alive, that she escaped the abuse. “I’m still not free,” she replies, weeping.Though there are no nationwide statistics on the number of women incarcerated after defending themselves against abusers, federal research suggests that about half of the women in prison have experienced past physical abuse or sexual violence, a majority from romantic partners. Black women are disproportionately victimized through both intimate partner violence and the justice system: They are the most likely to be killed by a romantic partner and more likely to end up in prison, according to Bernadine Waller, a scholar at Adelphi University.In bringing stories like these to the screen, said Nelson, the filmmaker, the aim was not to dispute who pulled a trigger, but to contextualize those convicted. “The legal system forces you to create the perfect victim,” he said, “and a prosecutor will do everything in their power to characterize a survivor into not fitting into that box.” (In Addimando’s case, the judge said she “reluctantly consented” to the sexual abuse.)Garrard Beeney, a lawyer for Addimando, who is awaiting a decision on her appeal, said the documentary’s examination of the way the judicial system treats survivors is “a necessary, but I also think, not sufficient step,” in changing the process. Police, prosecutors, and judges have to be educated on how to think about domestic violence, he said. “We need that kind of retraining more immediately than a gradual process of understanding.”Dadou Brown being filmed by Julian Lim, center, and Daniel A. Nelson. The film grew out of a thesis project. Natalie Pattillo/Grit PicturesFor Pattillo, who had two of her three children while making the film, some moments felt overwhelmingly raw. “There’s survivor’s guilt, always, when you’re dealing with trauma,” she said, adding, in reference to Addimando, “Why did I get to be OK and not Nikki? Why do her kids not get to be tucked in by her every night?”But it was also “very healing,” she added, “to have a hand in making sure the survivors feel seen and heard and believed through this film.”It originally ended on a dark note, at a vigil for Addimando. Then came the Davis case. The filmmakers were there on the day she was released from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Reacclimating to life outside — during a pandemic — is still challenging, Davis said last week. But she wanted her story told as a warning for victims, and a beacon. The filmmakers plan to make the documentary available to those in the legal system — “a tool kit,” Nelson said, on how to employ the new law.Dadou Brown was also at Bedford Hills; she drove Davis’s family there. Her advocacy, Dadou Brown said, had become her life’s calling. “I feel so fortunate to have so many dream-come-true moments,” she said. “Even coming home from prison. My next dream-come-true moment will be bringing Nikki home.” More

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      Il Divo Tenor’s Ex-Wife Sues Him, Citing Sexual and Physical Abuse

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      Sébastien Izambard exerted “coercive control” over Renée Izambard and subjected her to years of psychological abuse and torture, she said.A tenor in the classical crossover group Il Divo was sued Monday by his ex-wife, who accused him of domestic violence, sexual assault and battery and described his behavior toward her over the years as “a textbook example of coercive control.”In the suit, filed in state court in Los Angeles, Renée Izambard said that her ex-husband, the singer Sébastien Izambard, had subjected her to “years of dangerous psychological abuse and torture, and intense sexual, physical and emotional abuse, bringing her to the doorstep of death.”Ms. Izambard, 43, an Australian native who was a music publicist before she married Mr. Izambard, 48, charged in the lawsuit that over the years he had tracked her movements, withheld medical care, subjected her to sex acts without her consent, and threatened to stop supporting their three school-age children.“Really, she’s just fighting to be free of abuse,” Devin McRae, a lawyer for Ms. Izambard, said. He said that his client had been motivated to file the suit both to end what she saw as a campaign of terror that continued after she filed for divorce in 2018, and to shed light on how intractable coercive control is.Il Divo’s management and label have not responded to repeated requests for comment, nor did a lawyer who has represented Mr. Izambard in the past. A booking agent for the group had no comment. The group, which has sold some 30 million records, is due out with another one, celebrating the music of Motown, in July.In January, California enacted a law that defined coercive control, making it easier for behavior like isolating a partner to be introduced in family court as evidence of domestic violence. Pallavi Dhawan, director of domestic violence policy for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, said her office has been tracking the results. “I have heard that family lawyers are getting more success in getting restraining orders using coercive control, because they have been able to argue that it’s codified,” she said.Some legal experts believe that the law could open the door to make examples of coercive control admissible in other cases, such as the civil claim that Ms. Izambard is filing, though they warn that proving emotional and psychological abuse remains challenging. Still, said Ms. Dhawan, whose office was involved in drafting the law, “we wanted to start the conversation and name the harm, so that survivors would have the language” to describe their experiences.The Izambards met in Australia in 2005, when Il Divo, the wildly popular international pop-opera crossover quartet formed by Simon Cowell, was on tour there; by the following year, they were a couple, and Ms. Izambard left her job to move to France with Mr. Izambard, a Paris native. They married in 2008, shortly after the birth of a twin son and daughter, in a pregnancy that was fraught with medical complications.Mr. Izambard’s controlling behavior began before they were married, according to the suit. On a 2005 vacation to Thailand, he brought her to a brothel and, over her protestations, asked her to watch while he “had a sex act performed on him by two Thai prostitutes,” according to the suit. It was the first of many sexual demands that Mr. Izambard made against Ms. Izambard’s wishes, including pressuring her to have sex in front of other people, urinating on her against her will, and ejaculating on her feet while she slept, the lawsuit said.Ms. Izambard, who had been Il Divo’s Australian publicist, gave up that career when she became involved with Mr. Izambard, and he at times kept her from working again, refusing to permit her to get a work visa when the couple lived in London from 2010-2013: “Sébastien told Renée her visa would affect his offshore tax scheme,” the suit says. He did not put her name on their bank accounts or property portfolio for many years after they married, the suit says.He also sought to isolate and control her in other ways, the suit claims: “Sébastien would fly into a jealous rage when Renée called her family or friends in Australia or even if Renée fell asleep or went to bed before Sébastien. When driving in the car together, Sébastien demanded Renée hold his hand at all times.” He watched her on the CCTV system inside their home and tracked her movements outside using the Tesla app, the suit says. He did not permit her to read books in his presence, the suit says.Ms. Izambard attempted to leave him several times throughout their relationship, the suit says; at first, he promised to change to win her back (he eventually joined a group for sex addicts, according to the suit).But his behavior continued, and she suffered a “severe emotional breakdown” in 2017, the suit said. Afterward, the suit claims, he denied her medical treatment, kept her in their home and pressured her to make “pornographic video content.”In an earlier, ongoing case, Ms. Izambard sued her ex-husband and the insurer State Farm for damages related to the 2018 Woolsey fire in California, which destroyed the couple’s Malibu home just days after she filed for divorce. In that suit she charged that Mr. Izambard improperly controlled access to the insurer and its payouts.The lawsuit filed Monday says that Ms. Izambard and her children “require intensive therapy to deal with the psychological and physical trauma” of Mr. Izambard’s behavior.Mr. McRae, her attorney, said Ms. Izambard was cleareyed about what her lawsuit might mean for her ex-husband’s career and ultimately for her. “His whole earning capacity might disappear,” Mr. McRae said. But he said that she had filed the suit anyway, out of a belief that such misconduct should be identified, so it can potentially be stopped. More