Headsup: Disney's Hulu - mafia tool?! First warning already sent to the Knox series production team about the hoaxes and mafia connections. The Daily Beast's badly duped Grace Harrington calls it "the true story of Knox’s wrongful conviction of the murder of her roommate". Harrington should google "rocco sollecito" for why Italians hesitate to talk freely.
Friday, August 05, 2022
Another Legal Hoaxer Takes The First Of An Expected Many Hits
Posted by Peter Quennell
Overview
Bad day for legal hoaxers as the American justice system delivers another body-blow.
The Texas jury has now awarded PUNITIVE damages of $45.2m against the money-grubbing far-right radio host Alex Jones. This is on top of $4.1m awarded against him yesterday in COMPENSATORY damages.
Suing were just the first two of a possible 50 parents and teachers’ relatives that Jones had demonized daily for years in his false claims that a real bloodbath at a Connecticut school was a hoax to drive gun-control legislation.
Evidence that his own staff knew that it was a moneygrubbing hoax was presented. Alex Jones’s legal troubles have barely begun. He already faces a second trial in Connecticut next week.
Also Jones egged on the 6 January mob. thousands of recent text messages to Donald Trump etc etc that were handed over to the court by his own lawyer are headed for the Justice Department and Congress. This could result in criminal charges down the road.
For the many anti-Jones comments under the video (scroll down) please click here.
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Back In The News: UK’s Suzy Lamplugh Case, Maybe Most Obsessed-Over Anywhere
Posted by Peter Quennell
The History
Suzy Lamplugh disappeared in West London exactly thirty-six years ago today.
A real-estate broker, she had headed out alone to show a “Mr Kipper” a house, and she has never been seen since. No body. No hard proof of murder. Articles still pour out ceaselessly. There are so many YouTubes that it seems best that you take your pick.
The national frustration in England in part results from the fact that there are TWO suspects, both serial killers, the probable John Cannan whose car showed traces of Suzy’s DNA; and the possible Steve Wright, the Ipswich Killer, who Suzy’s family want interviewed - his own father labels him a possibility.
They have each spent years in prison and have divulged details of other crimes. So if either is guilty, why not do the same for this one?
Especially the one called John Cannan, locked up in Yorkshire, who is said to be on the point of dying. On 31 October 2018 our main poster James Raper kindly posted this tip about him.
I see that the police have started excavating the back garden of John Cannan’s mother’s back garden in the hope of, at long last, finding the remains of Suzy Lamplugh. Suzy was an attractive young estate agent who disappeared some 32 years ago after she had gone to meet a certain Mr Kipper at one of the properties on the agency’s books.
I rather doubt that they will find her there but if they do it will bring closure to Suzy’s remaining family. Her parents died a few years ago. Cannan can also then be charged with her murder.
The police never had anyone else in the frame. At the time of her disappearance Cannon was staying at a bail hostel nearby where he was called Mr Kipper because of his love of fishing and always being asleep. He was, it has to be said, rather a handsome man (though with rather strange, staring eyes) but he was also a sexual predator whose MOD with women was to portray himself as a successful businessman.
I bring this up because I was practicing law in Bristol when he was arrested and convicted for the murder of the newly-wed Shirley Banks. He had tried to abduct another woman only the day before Shirley disappeared. He is currently doing life.
It also transpired that he was having an affair with a Bristol solicitor whom I remember from my days there. IIRC she was representing him on some marital issue. She was married to a Bristol barrister though I never did work out who that was. Anyway, a narrow escape for her, and I didn’t see her around after that.
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Mainstream Media Woes: NBC Takes Heat For Blatantly One-Sided Report
Posted by Peter Quennell
NBC originated a live feed from the court. Now NBC slams those who actually watched?!
Below: 5 minutes. Comments here.
Below: 37 minutes. Comments here.
Below: 120 minutes. Comments here.
Below: 120 minutes. Comments here.
Below: 46 minutes. Comments here.
Below: 120 minutes. Comments here.
Thursday, July 14, 2022
More Proof That Mainstream Media Does NOT Accurately Report On Trials
Posted by Peter Quennell
Context
Main-media’s slow suicide by another name?
We recently quoted from some very ill-informed mainstream-media op-eds on the Depp-Heard case.
The NY Times’s and Washington Post’s OWN READERS in online comments below the op-eds almost universally said the opinion writers had NOT WATCHED THE CASE.
There are now literally thousands of comments under the numerous YouTube videos on the case arguing that social media did NOT affect the jury. It was hard facts that did.
Social media in fact simply reflected what many millions saw (except seemingly any mainstream media reporters) on the 20 or so live feeds from the court.
This video of a wildly biased NBC “news report” that aired last night was uploaded just a few hours ago.
Click through to the (at present 2600) comments here (scroll down) in effect almost all saying that, once again, mainstream media is lying to all of us on a grand scale.
Shades of the Meredith Kercher case and Danielle Redlick cases? You can find similar comments to these below under those biased media reports too. We have a lot of like-minded friends out there.
Betsy Packard 1 hour ago
Social Media did NOT determine this case. We watched Amber get caught lying time after time.
Jack White 7 hours ago
Wow NBC, this is how you treat information? Twist it to your will, you know as the public we see what you are doing and you are just loosing viewers.
Ashley Jordan 6 hours ago
This right here is why I refuse to watch MSM! They clearly did not watch the entire trial like most of us with common sense!
Matt Davis 10 hours ago
Really upsetting to see a big news media video like this completely disregard 90% of the trial and give a narrow, biased view on the trial discrediting the court and jury’s verdict, and humiliating Johnny depp, a surviver of amber heard. Both had huge evidence suppressed, Johnny couldn’t play the audio she admits to cutting his finger off.She was proven to be the abuser in a 6 week trial, and to watch this video is disgusting- this would not be happening had the roles been reversed
Gina Simmons 10 hours ago (edited)
I have never seen anything so biased in all my life. I watched the trial ! With an unbiased opinion and the truth slowly unfolded that Amber Heard was the abuser, based purely on fact.
I am a woman, and for my own reasons have always side with women about abuse - but this this trial changed my perspective- that men can be victims of abuse too. It sickened me that a woman could go to the depths she went to, to destroy a man that could no longer suffer her abuse.
It is saddening that something like this could be put together in such a way to discredit the verdict. I am sick of being called a Depp fan - I am a fan of truth and justice - something you have left out of this, people who know right from wrong - not fans. Though the right verdict was reached, you have tried to smear it and social media who have been far more truthful about the trial evidence than the MSM.
And as for Elaine Bredahoft- shameful, as she herself knows the lies her client has told and is still pushing them, she even told a few herself, I witnessed that - she should be disbarred.
Shameful that you have put a handful of people together so speedily who obviously never watched the whole trial, trying to sway the audience to believe a person who constantly perjured herself and covered it over with theatrics - was the victim and treated unjustly.
Amber Heard is the calculating, manipulative, narcissistic, physical and mental abuser of her former huband - why do you try to paint it as though this fact is not true - and because I have come to this conclusion after seeing it with my own eyes - I am described as Johnny Depp fan?
These are two people, the whole world is not split into two categories - either fans of Depp or Heard. Like me, as I said , just a fan of the truth and justice - for women and for men.
Kris 1 hour ago
This is actually appalling and insulting to everyone who watched this trial live. Insulting to all the fantastic Lawyers and law-workers commenting on this and cases similar to this for years to be smeared by wanna-be journalists who blatantly lie about them again and again. To give this stuff such a stage is unbelievable. Unquestioned biased opinions being presented as “facts”. As i can still see the dislikes this is getting rationed and rightfully so. When will the media finally get the message that they can NOT lie to their viewers any more? Its over. And imagine they would not have allowed cameras in there? News cannot be trusted, so called “experts” cannot be trusted. Thats what i learned from it. Because they lied to my face about stuff i was able to see first hand. This is just another idiotic try to change the “court of public opinion”.
barbde65 3 hours ago
And y’all at NBC and all other MSM’s wonder why we are all turned off? I recall the day she went and played the victim and the fallout… how I was so disappointed and had to believe her…then here comes this trial and I found a new community to follow and these attorneys didn’t believe he could win, the law was on her side… then JD puts on his part and I began to wonder… then AH takes the stand and I was angry… she showed herself as a liar and was fake…the way she kept trying to stare down the jury, the way she told stories that weren’t the same as her “witnesses”…then during both rebuttals, I changed my mind and realized how she’d used the metoo movement, women wanting to believe any claimant and the media to cancel JD… while he’s been all the things he said he was, I mean come on we all knew of his drinking and drug usage way back to the Viper Room and River Phoenix… but the way she described certain alleged abuses? She’d have needed IMMEDIATE treatment for sliced and bleeding feet and in Australia had he really committed SV with a “broken bottle” he would still be there in jail… you all owe JD the actual and fair truth which I highly doubt anyone of you has the decency to report… you’re nothing better than TMZ at this point! Shame on you for not reporting the ACTUAL facts and how disgusting she is as a person…
Randy Moog 3 hours ago (edited)
Three things.
1) NBC was caught replacing audio in the middle of the sentences Amber Heard was saying during their big interview. They replaced words mid sentence because it was pointed out when the first teasers came out she was obviously lying about facts, and it was easy to prove she was lying. So NBC removed parts of the video, and edited words mid sentence to make audio clips that were never said, but didn’t have the lies in them. There are a number of videos that show the teaser clips versus the final clips where this is clear.
2) The trial influences social media, not the other way around. People mocked AH lying and bizarre behavior AFTER they watched the trial, not the other way around. People watched the trial with open minds and it was the trial that made them then go to social media and talk about what they saw.
3) With social media it is easy to comment and fact check in real time. It is harder with MSM like NBC. NBC tries very hard to control the narrative and blocks and fact checking. Luckily this is posted on YouTube were people can comment - something you CANNOT do on NBC’s sites. And after watching them edit audio and change what people said, you can see why.
Keyyyyzzzz 8 hours ago
I recall a time when both the media AND online commentary were overwhelmingly in support of Amber ... which gradually turned around to support Johnny after the public release of two things: (1) the footage of Amber’s testimony in the UK, and; (2) the many hours of audio recordings - largely Amber’s own. So, as a ‘liberal’ minded (Australian) lawyer I made a point of following the entire six week trial, while deliberately blocking all commentary (both online and traditional media). My verdict was virtually identical with that of the Virginia jury. Not only was Amber’s testimony very contradictory, but there was simply no credible evidence to support her DA claims: and the little that there was ultimately seemed to emanate from Amber herself.
I have to say I’m really surprised at the traditional ‘liberal’ media commentaries - like this one - which appear to have rejected this verdict on the grounds that it will have a suppressing effect on victims of DA! Not only have you clearly NOT followed the evidence presented in this case itself, but you are ignoring the fact that the jury DID vindicate the DA survivor in this case: ie, Johnny Depp. As even your own expert commentators make clear in this video: men are extremely reluctant to come forward as DA victims! Its pretty clear that Johnny would NEVER have come forward ... if it weren’t for the fact that his entire reputation and career were at jeopardy! And yet you’re prepared to disregard both the bulk of the evidence AND the verdict of the jury; simply because it doesn’t conform to your outdated notion of what a DA survivor must look like. It seems to me that the traditional US ‘liberal’ media stands in very real danger of losing relevance in the News environment; a sad and frightening prospect in my opinion ... and in the opinion of hundreds of millions of fair and reasonably minded people around the world.
Tuesday, July 05, 2022
Unsavory Knox & Sollecito Chums Are Taking Quite A Beating Now
Posted by Peter Quennell
Fine Australian report praised by Italian viewers (scroll down)
1. Italian Developments
The video report on a mass trial in southern Italy could be good news.
That is if there is to be more exposure of the nefariousness in Meredith’s case. And of how way too much of the American media and the political administrations were led around by the nose, by these guys intent on taking Italian justice down a peg.
Not that Italian media have been exactly shy though. Few in Italy believe all was above board - in the selection of Judge Hellman and his “independent” consultants, in the final sentence issued in 2015 by the Supreme Court, and in Knox’s “not guilty” verdict in the Florence calunnia trial.
Everybody knows of the Sollecito family’s blood ties in the deep south and in Canada, though those have mostly dwindled since the assassination of Canadian mafia kingpin Uncle Rocco in Montreal in 2016.
Calabria is in the deep south of Italy, across the Strait of Messina from Sicily. Several thousand years ago, those were among the wealthiest areas in the world. Agriculture flourished back then, and the south was a major waypoint for cargo traffic making its way along the Mediterranean.
The remorseless decline of the deep south was first set in motion by climate change, and by piracy from bases in countries further to the east. Lawless gangs emerged after the 19th century uprisings against royalty.
The mafia big three families have long been considered Cosa Nostra (Sicily), Camorra (Naples) and Ndrangheta (Calabria). All three had connections with Meredith’s case.
The Ndrangheta was infiltrating the Perugia area around the time that Meredith died. Knox’s and Sollecito’s lead lawyers had represented mafia previously. Appeal judge Hellman was assigned in suspect circumstances. Sollecito was suspected of seeking help from the Canadian arm of the Ndrangheta. Both of the lead Supreme Court judges were from Naples and subjects of whispers. The judge in Knox’s second calunnia trial was transferred to Florence from the Ndrangheta area due to suspect friendships. A pro-prosecution witness had been a Camorra member. Perugia prosecutors and judges sometimes have a role in mafia cases. Perugia saw a mafia mass-arrest. One of the lead investigators transferred to Rome to head anti-mafia investigations.
Sicily’s Cosa Nostra was mostly responsible for the assassination of over 100 judges, prosecutors and others in law enforcement through the 1990s, at which time the kingpin was put away and the first several of various mass trials put away additional hundreds. It then faded, and the Ndrangheta mushroomed.
The current Ndrangheta mass trial in western Calabria is of the Mancuso clan, the west-coast segment of the Ndrangheta, which because of a seaport built in the 1990s is definitely the most significant. The trial will conclude in a few months - many took the short-form trial (in effect they pleaded guilty) but over 300 didn’t.
Does this suggest the last of the big Italian mafia families is finally on the ropes and of diminishing significance? Maybe; maybe not. As the Australian video explains, for many in the area, the Ndrangheta remains more popular than the government, because they make sure to provide more services.
But certainly by global standards they are not such big-fry. Russian, Japanese and Mexican crime families are estimated to be larger, both in membership and turnover. But the Ndrangheta is still big in European cocaine, and has bought a collection of conventional businesses.
Italian law enforcement has developed a number of admired and emulated techniques to diminish their crime families. One is to isolate members from one another and from other prisoners, in prison conditions that by Italian standards are not too nice.
Even at the peaks of these crime families, reported crime rates in Italy, murder or otherwise, have steadily remained below 1/5 of the American rates. Italian law enforcement is brave, and their systems are good models.
2. Canadian Developments
Mobster Dominico Scarfo has been on trial for the shooting of Rocco Sollecito at a traffic light in Montreal in May 2016, and for a related killing.
Rocco Sollecito had been the de facto head of the Rizutto crime family, which was very closely associated with the Italian Ndrangheta. Raffaele Sollecito met with him several times in 2012 and 2014 in a mob-controlled town at the east end of the Dominican Republic island.
Scarfo was found guilty of both killings in April. This is a report on the trial outcome from the Montreal Gazette.
The jury also found Scarfo, 49, guilty of conspiring to kill both men.
The trial began in late January, and the jury deliberated for 19 days — one of the longest deliberations in Canadian history — before reaching unanimous decisions on all four charges. The record for the longest deliberation is 28 days.
“In the name of us all, and in the name of the community you served as judges, I want to thank you for your services. All good things must have an end though,” Superior Court Justice Michel Pennou told the 10 jurors who remained on the panel at the trial’s end.
The prosecution faced an uphill battle as its key witness, an informant, initially refused to testify when he was first called to the stand in February.
“No. I won’t be answering any questions,” the informant told prosecutor Isabelle Poulin after she asked her first question.
“F—ing me over is f—ing everybody over. It ain’t happening,” the informant said back in February while complaining that his contract with the Sûreté du Québec was not being respected.
He eventually settled down and testified at length, despite several outbursts throughout.
With the first-degree murder verdicts, Scarfo automatically received a life sentence with a period of parole ineligibility fixed at 25 years. Pennou said he will hear sentencing arguments on the conspiracy charges at a later date….
Scarfo is said to have collaborated with, among others in the Canadian mob, a “deceased crime boss”.
Hmmm… Rocco Sollecito’s predecessor Nicolo Rizutto was gunned down in his house by a long-distance sniper.
Rocco has been widely presumed to have been behind that, and although said to have been a guy quite easy to get along with, some in the mob may have remained loyal to the previous boss.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Sentence Is 20 Years, And A Fine Of $750,000
Posted by Peter Quennell
Ghislaine Maxwell Sentencing Due Today; Defense Asks For Postponement
Posted by Peter Quennell
Thursday, June 23, 2022
Quack Psychologist Todd Grande Misrepresents Redlick Case, Ridicules Classic Signs Of PTSD
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click here for viewer comments. Video summary of facts below.
Context
The misleading title of the video is “Wife Hurries to Find New Lover After Stabbing Husband”
That never happened.
We have encountered the money-making by victim-shaming quack psychologist Todd Grande before. He seriously misrepresented Amanda Knox.
Now he seriously misrepresents Danielle Redlick, mainly by playing the tragedy for giggles and omitting most of the hard facts.
Viewing of the brutal honesty of her testimony is a real eye-opener. Prior to her taking the stand just about all bets were against her, and she had been demonized for years.
These things among others came out at trial and strongly justified her verdict of “not guilty”.
- 1. She was NOT on a dating site. The dating app showed up for a mere 10 seconds as the app provider testified.
2. Evidence of abuse by him was extensive, like witnesses to his hitting her. She tried for divorce and he stopped it.
3. They separated (hence the dating app) but he moved back in unilaterally and resumed roughing her up.
4. He had been raging at her since the previous day after spotting the app. Their children texted her to take care.
5. He attacked her violently, coming down on her, and the single defensive stab apparently seemed minor to both of them.
6. He walked around and yelled at her locked in the bathroom for up to 20 minutes. When she finally felt it safe to emerge he was dead.
7. Her muddled actions for the rest of the night are already declared by more-professional psychologists to be strong symptoms of PTSD - which she may need to keep fighting for years.
Todd Grande’s YouTube is the one irresponsible outlier. The first of the other YouTube analyses and the viewer comments below them - again mostly by women - are all totally on the mark.
Below: a factually correct 13-minute overview
Monday, June 20, 2022
How Three US Trials Associated In The Public Mind Are Right Now At Their Tipping Points
Posted by Peter Quennell
To reach comments click here.
The Three Cases
All three cases involve women who faced trials by jury. These are their imminent tipping points.
1. The Heard-Depp Damages Hearing
This Friday the 24th of June a meeting between the judge and the legal teams in the Depp-Heard case will arrive at agreements on the sizes of the damages awards.
The big unknowns are (1) how much the Depp team will ask for presumably in exchange for Amber Heard’s agreement that she will no longer poison public minds about the jury verdict; and (2) whether Amber Heard will be psychologically capable of biding by any such agreement.
Some professionals watching are seeing her psychology now as in a pretty bad way, rather than seeing a monster, and would prefer that Heard’s personal and media enablers stop getting in the way of treatment.
Many agree that Heard’s symptoms we see today mirror the diagnosis of two syndromes (Borderline and Histrionic) by court-ordered psychologist Dr Shannon Curry.
2. The Ghislaine Maxwell Sentencing
Last December the jury found Jeffrey Epstein’s procurer guilty of harm to several young women and in New York on Tuesday 28th next week she will be sentenced, probably to 20 years at a minimum.
She really is being seen as something of a monster. She might do herself a lot of good by sharing her little black book of all the men that violated the dozens of young girls at Epstein’s various properties. The only firmly known one was Prince Andrew and he settled a civil case with one girl for millions.
However, don’t hold your breath. Maxwell has shown no remorse, her team’s losing strategy was a pretty horrible one of trashing the young women, and her team is angling for a new trial.
3. The Danielle Redlick Sentencing
Our first-time mention of this high-profile Florida case. Danielle Redlick (below pre-abuse) admittedly stabbed her husband to death, but has just been found not guilty in light of very convincing evidence of self-defense and domestic violence.
She will be sentenced August 5 for some crime scene rearrangement, and as she was held before trial for over three years she may not serve any more time.
Why is this associated with the other cases in the public mind? Well, one or two had seen in her a monster, like Ghislaine, while many others, genuine domestic violence victims and experts, have declared online that her DV predicament rang true to them.
Her perceived unflinching honesty is the very opposite of the many negative reactions online to the escalating DV descriptions Amber Heard has been trying to market, evidence-free.
Click here for a YouTube with numerous comments from DV survivors about Amber Heard faking it and Danielle Redlick not
Danielle Redlick in pre-marriage days
Thursday, June 16, 2022
ABC News Channels A Juror, Undercutting Heard’s Wildeyed Claims On Other US Networks
Posted by Peter Quennell
(1) Scroll down for viewer comments. (2) See at foot for UK lawyer analysis.
Additionally to the video analysis at bottom there is this newer longer one examining the whole of the pussyfooting NBC Dateline interview with Heard.
Context
The NBC network has aired an interview in several parts with Amber Heard.
This now looks like a disaster. Informed court-watchers have gone to town both on the timid and ill-prepared NBC interviewer and on Amber Heard over her multitude of unchallenged conspiracy theories (some excellent comments there).
And now, unsurprisingly, the jury starts to push back against Amber Heard’s incessant media trashing of them. The GMA website carries the video above and also this telling reporting.
By Mark Guarino & Doug Lantz
A juror in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial said in an interview that aired Thursday on “Good Morning America” that when the actress cried during her testimony the jury saw only “crocodile tears.”
“It didn’t come across as believable,” he said. “It seemed like she was able to flip the switch on her emotions. She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. It didn’t seem natural.”
Depp, he said, “just seemed a little more real in terms of how he responded to questions.”
The juror, one of seven jurors during the six-week trial, spoke exclusively to “GMA” and is the only juror on record to speak publicly about the case. He asked to have his name not used for this report.
In early June, a jury in Fairfax, Virginia, awarded Depp more than $10 million in damages; Heard received $2 million in her countersuit.
The catalyst for defamation countersuits was a 2018 op-ed Heard wrote in The Washington Post in which she said she “became a public figure representing domestic abuse.”
Depp argued that suggested she was victimized by him, although she never identified him by name.
‘Why would you buy the other person a knife?’
Heard’s credibility was suspect throughout the duration of the trial, the juror said. Besides how she acted on the stand, several other factors led the jury to believe Heard was not credible, the juror said.
The jury concluded “they were both abusive to each other” but Heard’s team failed to prove Depp’s abuse was physical.
“They had their husband-wife arguments. They were both yelling at each other. I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong. That’s what you do when you get into an argument, I guess. But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying,” he said.
Heard, the juror said, was considered the aggressor in the relationship by the majority of the jury. “If you have a battered wife or spouse situation, why would you buy the other person, the ‘aggressor,’ a knife? If you really wanted to help Johnny Depp get off drugs, why are you taking drugs around him?” he asked.
Heard testified she purchased Depp a large knife as a gift, which Depp’s legal team presented to jurors.
The juror said that photographs Heard took of her ex-husband also fell flat. Although the defense used them to show Depp’s decrepit state after a drug or alcohol binge, the juror said they failed to make an impact.
“If you mix alcohol and marijuana, that’s where you usually end up—passed out,” he said. “We discussed at length that a lot of the drugs she said he used, most of them were downers. And you usually don’t get violent on downers. You become a zombie, as those pictures show.”
In his testimony, Depp also admitted to cocaine use, a stimulant, and Heard testified he was frequently doing the drug in her presence.
No make-up: no credibility
The juror also said the jury essentially dismissed all witnesses on both sides who were employees, paid experts, friends or family from either side.
Also suspect were the photos that Heard’s team presented that purported to show bruising on the actress’ face. Two photos presented near the end of the trial were not credible to the jury, he said.
They believed the accusation by Depp’s team that one photo was edited to artificially redden Heard’s face to suggest bruising. Heard testified the photos looked different because of a “vanity light.”
“Those were two different pictures. We couldn’t really tell which picture was real and which one was not,” the juror told “GMA.”
The juror also said the defense failed Heard by telling them that the actress “never goes outside without make-up on,” he said. “Yet she goes to file the restraining order without make-up on. And it just so happens her publicist is with her. Those things add up and starts to become hard to believe,” he said.
$7 million donation that never happened was ‘a fiasco’ for Heard
The juror said the four-hour debate over the difference between a pledged donation and an actual donation ended up “a fiasco” for Heard.
On the stand, Heard testified she never finished donating all $7 million from her divorce settlement to two charities because she didn’t want Depp to reap the tax benefits by sending her settlements to the charities directly.
Heard testified that a pledge and a donation are “synonymous with one another” and “mean the same thing.” The jury was shown video of Heard on a Dutch talk show saying she gave her donation to the charities.
“The fact is, she didn’t give much of it away at all,” the juror said. “It was disingenuous.”
He blamed Heard’s legal team for giving her poor advice, such as looking directly at the jury when responding to questions. “All of us were very uncomfortable” at that, he said.
He also said her team “had sharp elbows versus being sharp.”
“They would cut people off in cross because they wanted one specific answer without context. They were forcing people to just answer a very narrow question ... which was obvious,” he said.
“She needs better advice,” he said of Heard.
Publishing the 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post that defamed Depp was a poor choice, he said. “If she didn’t do any of this stuff with the op-eds, Johnny Depp could have helped her out in her career. They didn’t leave things on a nasty turn,” when they divorced, he said. “It turned nasty after the op-ed.”
‘We only looked at the evidence’
The juror denied the jury was swayed by outside forces. He and “at least” three others did not have Twitter accounts.
“Some people said we were bribed. That’s not true. Social media did not impact us. We followed the evidence. We didn’t take into account anything outside [the courtroom]. We only looked at the evidence,” he said. “They were very serious accusations and a lot of money involved. So we weren’t taking it lightly.”
The juror also said that no one on the jury was starstruck and their individual celebrity never played a factor in their decision. While he admitted he knew of Depp more than Heard, he hadn’t seen many of his films. “None of us were really fans of either one of them,” he said.
Asked whether he would go see a future movie starring Depp or Heard, the juror said it would depend on the movie.
“What they do in their personal lives doesn’t affect me whatsoever. Going to movies is entertainment. I go for the quality of the movie or the storyline,” he said. “Not for the acting.”