Preparation for Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s legal battle in Fairfax County, Virginia is well underway. This began when Depp sued Heard for $50M over a Washington Post op-ed she wrote about her experience as a victim of domestic violence. In response, she filed a $100 million counterclaim, also alleging defamation and that Johnny was responsible for a social media effort to tarnish her career by getting her booted off Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Now we’re beginning to see indications of what they’ll be arguing. Heard’s legal team recently applied for a subpoena in order to gather as much info as they can on the LAPD officers who arrived on the scene of a 2016 domestic disturbance call at the pair’s house.
Heard’s subpoena has now been approved by Fairfax County courts clerk John Frey, and it asks the LAPD to produce “books, documents, records, electronically stored information and tangible things” connected to the visit, IWMBuzz reports. At the core of this is body-camera footage from Officers Melissa Saenz and Tyler Hadden.
In a big hint at the argument Heard’s team are preparing, the subpoena requests:
“All documents and communications of any nature respecting any investigation of, and any disciplinary actions taken against Officers Saenz and Hadden for any conduct up through December 2016.”
And:
“The audit trails for any deletions, modifications, or viewing of the body camera footage uploaded to evidence.com by Officers Saenz and Hadden during the period October 1, 2015 through August 1, 2016. … This request includes all documents that show any deletions, modifications or viewing up the present for footage uploaded during that timeframe.”
Heard’s lawyers are clearly anticipating the argument that they not only cannot prove domestic violence has taken place, but that the evidence suggests otherwise. In a previous deposition the officers said they saw no marks on her and that the apartment was in fine shape. This subpoena is an attempt to get ahead of that argument and call the officers and evidence into question.
Maybe they have good reason to look deeper into the situation, maybe not. Either way, it looks like the April 2022 trial in Fairfax County is going to be a difficult and hard-fought affair. Whether Johnny Depp or Amber Heard come out on top remains unclear.