Transcript of Hearing

Date: May 13, 2023

Case: Depp, II -v- Heard
V I R G I N I A:

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR FAIRFAX COUNTY

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JOHN C. DEPP, II,

Plaintiff,

v. Case No. CL2019-0002911

AMBER LAURA HEARD,

Defendant.

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Hearing on Motions

Before the HONORABLE PENNEY AZCARTE, Judge

Fairfax, Virginia

Thursday, April 21, 2021

Hearing on Motions before the HONORABLE PENNEY AZCARTE, Judge, at the

Fairfax County Circuit Court.
 APPEARANCES

ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFF MR. DEPP:

BENJAMIN G. CHEW, ESQ.

CAMILLE M. VASQUEZ, ESQ.

REBECCA MCDOWELL LECAROZ, ESQ.

STEPHANIE CALNAN, ESQ.

BROWN RUDNICK, LLP

601 Thirteenth Street, NW, Suite 600

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 536-1700

ON BEHALF OF THE DEFENDANT MS. HEARD:

ELAINE CHARLSON BREDEHOFT, ESQUIRE

ADAM S. NADELHAFT, ESQUIRE

CHARLSON BREDEHOFT COHEN & BROWN, PC

11260 Roger Bacon Drive, Suite 201

Reston, VA 20190

J. BENJAMIN ROTTENBORN, ESQUIRE

WOODS ROGERS, PLC

10 South Jefferson Street, Suite 1400

P.O. Box 14125

Roanoke, VA 24011-1319
 LIST OF WITNESSES

ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFF MR. DEPP:

CHRISTI DEMBROWSKI, by in-person testimony

ISAAC BARUCH, by in-person testimony

ON BEHALF OF THE DEFENDANT MS. HEARD:

BRANDON PATTERSON, by in-person testimony

 PROCEEDINGS

The contours of the high-stakes legal battle between the Plaintiff and his former wife,
the Defendant, became clearer on Wednesday, as the Plaintiff’s older sister sought
to refute the Defendant’s claims that her brother was a violent, unaccountable,
childlike drug addict. The first witness, who is also the Plaintiff’s personal manager,
said she did not share Defendant’s concerns – also advanced by a doctor who was
treating the plaintiff’s addiction to pain medication – that the actor was dependent on
drugs and that he despaired of ever kicking his habit.

According to live video of the trial shared via YouTube, The witness had testified
that her brother had sworn to never perpetrate domestic violence after he was a
victim of it himself. But under questioning from the Defendant’s lawyers on
Wednesday, The witness conceded she had been concerned about the pain
medication he was taking. The Defendant's first lawyer asked similar questions,
zeroing in on a text exchange between the Defendant and witness in February 2014.
“The Defendant says, ‘JD is on a bender,’ and your response is, ‘Where are the
kids?’ — correct?” The Defendant's lawyer asked.

The witness said that was correct. She also confirmed a 2014 email exchange she
had with a doctor who treated the Plaintiff addiction to pain medication. “You believe
that your brother needed help with drugs and alcohol?” The Defendant's lawyer
asked.

The witness responded that she was concerned about the Plaintiff use of one
medication but didn't believe that he had a problem with drugs or alcohol overall, or
that he romanticized drug culture.

The witness also struggled on cross-examination when shown texts she had written
to the defendant soon after the couple returned from Australia, where, the Plaintiff
has claimed that the Defendant severed his finger with a vodka bottle.

“I love him so much but he needs help,” The witness wrote. In a second text, she
advised the Defendant to tell her husband: “I’m scared and I can’t deal.”
The Defendant's lawyers claimed that the Plaintiff was routinely late for work,
including on one occasion being seven hours late on shoot-day on Disney’s Pirates
5 in Australia. The witness, meanwhile, testified that he was pushed to complete a
certain number of movies a year to keep his ex-agent’s income up, hinting that the
Plaintiff and his ability to earn millions was part of a larger star ecosystem dependent
on him. The witness wrote in a message, referring to the Plaintiff's alleged drug use
before advising the Defendant in a separate text to tell the Plaintiff that she "can't
deal" with his struggle.

The witness said that she never witnessed the Defendant and Plaintiff arguing or
engaging in any physical altercation.

On cross-examination, The Defendant's first lawyer confronted the witness with text
messages she sent to the Plaintiff about his drug and alcohol use. “Stop drinking,”
“Stop coke,” and “Stop pills,” The witness wrote in back-to-back messages. The
witness also acknowledged sending them but she avoided stating outright on the
witness stand that the Plaintiff had a problem.
The witness also claimed on the stand that the Defendant previously referred to the
Plaintiff, her husband at the time, as "an old, fat man." The Defendant also allegedly
shared her disdain when the Plaintiff was offered a partnership with Dior. "They’re
about class and style and you don’t have style," The Defendant supposedly told the
Plaintiff at the time, according to witness testimony.

On the second day of Plaintiff’s defamation lawsuit against the Defendant, one of the
Plaintiff’s long-time friend, the Second Witness took to the stand where he testified
that the Defendant taunted the Plaintiff during an argument where the Plaintiff
accused the Defendant of cheating on him with another man.

During cross examination, The second lawyer of the Defendant asked the Witness ,
“Let’s go back. You testified that you observed an argument between the Plaintiff
and the Defendant. Do you recall that? You came into the room, The Plaintiff had the
Defendant on speaker phone. Do you recall that?” The witness simply replied, “Yea.”

The Defendant’s lawyer then asked, “The Plaintiff was drunk, do you agree?” The
witness answered, “Yea.”
The defendant lawyer then asked, “Do you recall that the Plaintiff was in London, not
actually New York?” The witness answered, “No.” When asked to elaborate he said,
“No, I thought she was in New York.”
Next, The Defendant’s lawyer asked, “And you recall that the Plaintiff was accusing
the Defendant of sleeping with somebody right?”

He responded, “There was somebody else in the room with her and that’s what they
were arguing about.”

The Defendant’s lawyer then asked, “Are you sure the Plaintiff wasn’t thinking there
was someone in the room and she was trying to tell him there wasn’t somebody in
the room?”

The witness asked the defendant’s lawyer to repeat the question to which the
defendant’s lawyer said, “Are you sure he wasn’t saying someone was in the room
and she was trying to convince him there wasn’t anybody in the room.”

The witness answered, “Well, he said that he heard the other voice.’ However, he
said he didn’t hear anyone else, “Oh no, I walked in there already. This is already in
motion.”

The witness then began describing the phone call, “The Defendant was saying,
‘Come on baby, why you being like this? What are you doing? Come on, Johnny?
There’s no need… Why you being like this?’ And it was taunting.”

The defendant’s lawyer then asked for him to explain why he described it as
“taunting.” He said, “Because they were in the midst of no solution. At that point it
would be instead of taunting saying, ‘Listen, John, let’s talk tomorrow and let’s end
this conversation right now and we’ll talk to tomorrow and we’ll get to an
understanding because there’s not going to be any solution right now.’ But there was
none of that. It was just continuous, ‘Ah baby. Ah baby.’ And that kept it going.”

The witness would go on to reiterate that he didn’t hear anyone else and he “didn’t
hear the beginning of the conversation.” He also detailed that the Plaintiff hung up,
the Defendant called back, and that there was a third call between the two before
the Plaintiff went to the couch and fell asleep.

Following this testimony, the defendant’s lawyer would then ask if he was angry at
the Defendant. He responded saying, “When? Oh, about all of the phony — about
the phony pictures that were taken and put in tabloids and about the fake narrative
and about the way she got a fraudulent DV claim to extort and blackmail a man?
Yeah, that kind of got me frustrated, confused, angry, upset. Yes. Which is why I
said the best thing for us to do is not to talk to each other.”

When asked if he was still angry, the witness responded, “You know something, it’s
six years. It’s six years. Am I angry any more? What I am is tired. And I want is this
all to end. Her to go heal. Him to go heal.”

He continued, “So many people have been affected by this malicious lie that she
started and she created and it’s gone out the door and around the world. I can’t even
paint anymore. I’ve stopped painting for the last who knows how many years.
“I’m not angry at anybody. I want the best for her. For her to take her responsibility,
heal, and move on. Move on. And for the Plaintiff, his family has been completely
wrecked by all of this stuff and it’s not fair. It’s not right what she did and what
happened for so many people to get affected for this. It’s insane how this happened,”
he said.

The Defendant’s lawyer would then ask, “You don’t know whether the Plaintiff has
committed domestic violence to the Defendant, do you?”

He answered, “I’ve never witnessed. I never saw or witnessed whatever type of

claim that is being said. Ever. I’ve never seen him be violent since teenagers from
first meeting.”

The witness said he came home with a friend and saw glass scattered in a hallway,
along with a puddle of wine, and figured someone had a raging party. The next day,
he walked by and saw two locksmiths; according to the witness, The Defendant said,
“The Plaintiff came by last night and he got violent, so I’m changing the locks” on
three of the penthouses.

The witness said that the defendant told him that the Plaintiff threw a phone and hit
her, and when he asked where, she showed him the right side of her face. The
witness said he inspected her entire face, but didn’t see any cuts, bruises, redness
or swelling. He explained that he saw her multiple times throughout the week, and
every time, he didn’t see any marks on her face, and it didn’t look like she was
wearing makeup.

“She’s got her face out like this to show me, and I’m looking, and I inspect her face,”
The witness said of the encounter in May 2016. “And I don’t see anything. … I don’t
see a cut, a bruise, swelling, redness.”The witness testified that he noticed no
makeup on Defendant’s face when she said the Plaintiff hit her.

In cross-examination, The Defendant’s lawyer asked if the witness knew anything

about the Defendant’s makeup routine, and whether he had ever seen her apply it or
knew what kinds of cream, foundation, concealer, powder or tint she uses. The
witness said he did not. “When you saw her … you don’t know [if] she was not
wearing makeup, right?” The Defendant’s lawyer said, pointing out that actors and
models like the Defendant are pretty good at looking like they’re not wearing
makeup. The witness acknowledged he did not know, but said the defendant
seemed like “not a makeup-wearing person” for the most part.

At one point, The witness got emotional, stating that Heard needs to “take
responsibility and move on.”

The Defendant’s lawyers have said the evidence will show that the Plaintiff
physically and sexually assaulted the Defendant on multiple occasions. And they’ve
argued that the Plaintiff denials lack credibility because he frequently drank and
used drugs to the point of blacking out and failing to remember anything he did.
Near the end of the witness testimony, The Defendant’s lawyer questioned him
about text exchanges with the Plaintiff in which the actor used a derogatory term to
describe the defendant and hoped her “rotting corpse is decomposing” in the “trunk
of a Honda Civic.”

Later in the day, the Third witness invited, the general manager, appeared in a pre-
recorded interview identified numerous video clips preserved from those days in May
2016, showing the Plaintiff and the Defendant and their friends taking the elevator to
the penthouse level, appearing in the Art Deco lobby, and even the moment police
officers visited on the night of the alleged altercation.

Missing from the videos was a moment mentioned by the Plaintiff’s lawyers and the
second witness that is purported to show Whitney Heard mock-punching her sister
and the two of them laughing around the time of the incident.

The witness says neither legal team at the time asked for that piece of footage to be
preserved and so it would have automatically been recorded over at a later date.
In a recorded testimony, ECB manager the Third Witness was taken through scores
of CCTV clips showing the Plaintiff, Defendant, and police officers, taken from the
building’s surveillance cameras in 2016, and asked to confirm they were genuine.

The Plaintiff third lawyer asked if the Plaintiff had ever offered him money, he said
no.