Y’all! What. The. Eff?!?
Amber Heard’s legal team is doubling down on their claim that one of the jurors in the Johnny Depp trial was a FAKER! As if this case wasn’t already wild enough! According to TMZ on Friday, the legal team just filed new docs alleging that one juror was pretending to be someone else the whole time!! WHAT?!
The claim states that a jury summons was sent to a Virginia home in which there are two individuals with (at the very least) the same last name. The person called to sit in on the defamation case was a 77-year-old, but a 52-year-old showed up in their place! Now how does the court not notice that?!
The documents claim that both people share the same last name, but it does not indicate whether or not they share the same first name. In fact, the juror’s name was redacted from the filing obtained by Deadline — perhaps for privacy reasons since Judge Penney Azcarate previously said their identities would be sealed for a year following the high-profile case. Nonetheless, Amber’s lawyer stated via Deadline:
“In this case, it appears that Juror No. 15 was not, in fact, the same individual as listed on the jury panel. Ms. Heard’s due process was therefore compromised. Under these circumstances, a mistrial should be declared, and a new trial ordered.”
The filing went on to allege that the juror sitting on the bench was never supposed to be there in the first place and was not properly listed on the required legal documents, adding:
“Thus, the 52-year-old sitting on the jury for six weeks was never summoned for jury duty on April 11 and did not ‘appear in the list,’ as required.”
Obviously, this new filing raises some major red flags about the court and the legitimacy of the verdict. In the filing, the attorney goes on to suggest that Juror #15 was able to make it onto the jury without ever having to supply an official ID — or that they could have shown a fake ID. Who would have the balls to do that in court?!?
This isn’t the only reason the imposter might have slipped through the cracks either. The document also stated that it appeared that someone filled out a required online information form either intentionally or accidentally to say that they were born in 1945. Which, if it was the 52-year-old writing that, was a blatant lie.
Nevertheless, because the wrong person allegedly joined the jury, Amber’s lawyers are calling this a fraud, per TMZ, because the younger individual should never have been serving on the jury in the first place! And since they did show up and did have a say in the verdict — which of course went unanimously to Johnny — they want the WHOLE THING thrown out! They argued via Deadline:
“As the Court no doubt agrees, it is deeply troubling for an individual not summoned for jury duty nonetheless to appear for jury duty and serve on a jury, especially in a case such as this. This was a high-profile case, where the fact and date of the jury trial were highly publicized prior to and after the issuance of the juror summonses. Virginia has in place statutory code provisions designed to ensure the person called for jury duty is the person arriving for jury duty.”
The filing points out juror identification safeguards are in place “to ensure due process and a fair trial for all litigants” and:
“When these safeguards are circumvented or not followed, as appears to be the case here, the right to a jury trial and due process are undermined and compromised.”
Wowza! This definitely raises a LOT of questions!
Given the fact that all of the jurors sided with the Pirates of the Caribbean alum in the case, it makes sense why the Zombieland lead would be battling it out over this possible one-person f**k up! She was ordered to pay her ex-husband $10 million in damages for her defamatory op-ed (while she won $2 million for things Depp’s attorney said throughout the legal fight). Getting a second stab at the trial would be huge for her — especially if it happened without a formal appeal that would force her to fork up millions and then some!
Of course, this all stems from initial reports we first heard last week. At the time, the actress filed an extensive memorandum obtained by Law&Crime. In that, the 36-year-old’s attorney claimed that Juror #15 wasn’t properly vetted by the court officials. They were listed as having the birth year of 1945, but the person sitting on the jury appeared much younger, supposedly having the birth year of 1970. The document continued:
“This discrepancy raises the question whether juror 15 actually received a summons for jury duty and was properly vetted by the Court to serve on the jury.”
If this is true, we imagine Juror #15 and possibly some of the court officials who let this happen could be in some deep s**t — and could maybe even be facing jail time or a hefty fine in the future! As of last week, Johnny’s attorney Ben Chew told TMZ that none of Amber’s latest claims were true, saying there was nothing “substantive” in her motion — but the team have yet to respond to this new filing.
What do YOU think about this, Perezcious readers?!
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