FALLS CHURCH, Va.  (AP) – Amber Heard has pushed for the details of her marriage to fellow actress Johnny Depp to be included in an article she wrote about domestic violence, even though her lawyers wanted to remove those excerpts from the article.  is now being sued for defamation, according to evidence presented at the trial on Thursday.
The jury in the defamation lawsuit filed by Depp against Herd heard testimony Thursday from Terence Dowerty, adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union.  It was the ACLU that wrote the article under Heard’s name, reflecting on her role as ACLU’s ambassador for gender-based violence.
Dougherty testified about the push and pull that occurred between the first draft and the publication of the op-ed track in The Washington Post in December 2018 – strategic timeline by both ACLU and Heard to coincide with release of the movie “Aquaman”.  in which he played a prominent role.
Depp sued Fairfax County District Court after the article was published, in which Herd says that “two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse and felt the full rage of our culture for women who speak openly.” .  Depp’s lawyers say this is a clear reference to allegations of abuse he made against Depp in 2016, which Depp says are untrue.
Dougherty testified that several ACLU attorneys reviewed the article at various stages and asked Heard’s attorneys to re-examine the piece as well to ensure that it did not conflict with Depp’s non-disclosure agreement regarding the couple’s 2016 divorce. .
During these discussions, Herd sent an edited version approved by her lawyers that “specifically sterilizes much of the copy of her marriage,” according to an email from Jessica Weitz, an ACLU staffer who coordinated with Heard.
According to the email, however, Heard was looking for a way to restore a deleted passage in the article.
The various draft articles were not presented to the jury, so it is unclear how many personal details were in the first draft and how many were removed by Heard’s lawyers.
But the final version contains very little about Heard’s personal experiences.  He does not mention Depp at all.  In addition to the quote about “a public figure representing domestic abuse,” another quote reads, “I have rarely had the advantage of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
Much of the article talks about legislative priorities for advocates of preventing domestic abuse.  Other excerpts refer to parts of her personal life that are not related to Depp.
Dougherty testified that “the language completed in the last op-ed track was very different from the original language” in the draft, Dougherty said.  “It did not directly address Mrs Herd’s relationship with Johnny Depp.”
While the trial is supposed to be over if Depp was defamed in the article, very little testimony in the first three weeks, until Thursday, relates to the article itself or its content.  Herd’s lawyers predicted at the beginning of the trial that it would become a soap opera mud that would delve into messy details of Depp and Herd’s personal lives.
Herd’s lawyers, however, have said that even if the jury believed that he was never abused by Depp, Herd should prevail in the lawsuit, because the article does not concern Depp, nor does it discredit Herd’s rights. in freedom of speech allow to balance issues of public importance such as domestic violence.
Much of Dougherty’s filing also focused on whether Heard fulfilled her promise to donate $ 3.5 million – half of her $ 7 million divorce settlement to Depp – to the ACLU.  Dougherty testified that the ACLU is crediting her with a $ 1.3 million contribution so far and expected the money to come in a 10-year period, but that she has made no contribution since 2018.