A forensic psychologist who evaluated Amber Heard testified that the effect of the alleged abuse by Johnny Depp made Heard drop 25lbs.
Dr. Dawn Hughes, a New York-based clinical and forensic psychologist who is an expert about domestic violence, said that Heard went from 130lbs to 105lbs in weight.
Heard was taking ‘significantly more medication’ and had more episodes of panic and more outbursts of anger, Dr. Hughes testifies, and called the mixture of Depp’s substance abuse and the violence a ‘very, very disastrous mix.’
She said there is a ‘lot of lying’ when someone is a substance abuser, a lot of ‘blame for your inability to stay clean and sober.’
Depp would have tried to rationalize his behavior and promised to get better, Dr. Hughes said, adding, ‘The majority of the sexually violent episodes were in these alcohol and drug fueled rages.
‘When alcohol and drugs came together was when Amber Heard was more in danger of being hurt by him.’
According to Dr. Hughes’ analysis, while Heard was verbally abusive and did hit Depp, it didn’t rise to the same level as him because she was ‘never able to shift the balance of power and control.’
The court heard that the claims by Depp’s lawyers that Heard’s abuse was a ‘hoax’ – the basis of her $100million lawsuit against him – would have made her trauma worse.
Dr. Hughes said that reading these reports would have made Heard’s PTSD more severe with more nightmares and more sleeplessness.
Dr. Hughes said: ‘The one thing women are afraid of is that no-ones going to believe them. When someone comes out and calls your experience a hoax that lends itself to more severe trauma for her.
Depp’s lawyer Wayne Dennison cross examined Hughes Wednesday morning.
Dennison pressed Dr. Hughes on her use of the pronoun ‘she’ during her testimony the previous day.
Dr. Hughes said: ‘I was using she and her because my determination was Miss Heard was the victim of intimate partner violence.’
Dennison asked if Dr. Hughes even spoke to Depp during her evaluation and she said no.
Dennison said: ‘You can’t assess a relationship without talking to both parties?’
Dr. Hughes replied: ‘You can get a lot of information from one party, especially when it’s buttressed by therapy records and couple’s therapy.
‘I also read Mr. Depp’s transcripts, I reviewed his medical records, his texts message. I was not necessarily totally blind.’
Dennison asked: ‘So the standard now is not necessarily totally blind, I can assess it?’
Dr. Hughes said: ‘We assess relationships all the time. Certainly someone who has been trained in intimate partner violence looks for the dynamics.’
Under questioning Dr. Hughes said that she did not interview Dr. Laurel Anderson, the couple’s therapist who did a number of sessions with Depp and Heard.
Dr. Hughes said that Anderson’s notes, she said that Depp had been ‘well controlled’ for 20 or 30 years but ‘something in Miss Heard triggered him’.
Anderson did not conclude that Heard was the victim of spousal abuse but Dr. Hughes said that she disagreed with this.
Dennison said: ‘The stuff you disagree with you disregard and the rest you keep?
Dr. Hughes said: ‘That’s not correct.’
The court was shown the knife that Heard bought Depp as a present with the inscription ‘Hasta la muerte’, or ‘until death’ in Spanish.
Raising his voice, Dennison said: ‘A woman you suggest has characteristics of being afraid for her life gives her intimate partner a large knife on which she inscribes until death?’
Dr. Hughes protested that ‘there’s context’ to the gift.
Dr. Hughes testified that Heard initially described occasions where Depp forced her to have sex as ‘angry sex’.
Dennison asked Dr. Hughes if she helped Heard to ‘reframe’ these encounters as non consensual but she denied it, saying her job was to evaluate her.
The court was shown results from one of the tests that Dr. Hughes carried out on Heard as she was cross examined Wednesday.
Under the section ‘potential for aggression,’ it read: ‘Sometimes my temper explodes and I completely lose control.’
Dr. Hughes said that Heard responded that this was ‘sometimes true.’
She said: ‘Miss Heard reported to me in her relationship that would happen. Her anger and affect regulation would become impaired’.
Going over another response, Dr. Hughes confirmed that Heard said it was sometimes the case that ‘my temper explodes.’
Another response from Heard read: ‘I think I have three or four completely different personalities inside of me’.
Heard said this was ‘sometimes true’, Dr. Hughes said.
Dr Hughes said that Heard admitted to her she cut herself once as a teenager in a ‘reckless, stupid moment’ and never did it again.
On Tuesday Heard appeared close to tears several times as Dr. Hughes testified.
Dr. Hughes said that women in abusive relationships get into them for the right reasons but slowly their partner turns.
Dr. Hughes outlined horrifying instances where she claims Heard told her about sexual violence committed on her by Depp.
Dr. Hughes said that when Depp ‘was drunk or high he threw her (Heard) on the bed, ripped off her nightgown and tried to have sex with her.’
She said: ‘He forced her to give him oral sex when he was angry. These weren’t loving moments, these were dominant moments.’
On another occasion when Depp accused a woman of hitting on Heard he ‘performed a cavity search,’ Dr. Hughes said.
She said that ‘he was looking for drugs,’ adding that Depp thought it was ‘acceptable to rip off her nightgown and stick his fingers up her vagina looking for cocaine.’
Another time Depp put his fingers in Heard’s vagina and ‘moved her around violently’ while they were in the closet.
The incident in Australia, where Depp’s fingertip was severed during an argument with Heard, was ‘one of the most severe.’
Dr. Hughes said: ‘When he was beating her and chocking her, saying I hate you I will f**king kill you, Miss Heard was dissociating and going outside of her body. The only thing she’s thinking is: ‘Oh God I hope it’s not the broken one.’
Dr. Hughes said that during ‘alcohol fueled’ incidents where Depp threw Heard on a bed and tried to have sex with her, it didn’t always work out.
She said: ‘If he was not able to perform he would get more angry at her and blame her.’
As Dr. Hughes said this Heard appeared to struggle to contain her emotions.
Dr.Hughes said that the physical violence suffered by Heard including Depp pushing her, shoving her, choking her and kicking her in the back.
She suffered ‘mostly bruising’, cuts and ‘vaginal pain’ from some of the sexual assaults.
Heard said she lost consciousness twice after fights with Depp, in Australia and December 2015.
Dr. Hughes said that among the examples of coercive control done by Depp was him telling her he ‘didn’t want her to show nudity’ or to show her breasts while filming.
Depp didn’t want Heard to act with certain people because of his ‘obsessive jealousy.’
He regarded Heard’s ambition as ‘something negative’ and he ‘persistently put her down’, telling her she ‘didn’t need to show her tits and a**.’
Dr. Hughes claimed that Depp would call ‘almost every actor’ Heard worked with and the director to tell them: ‘I got eyes down there, I got eyes on set.’
Dr. Hughes said: ‘He tried to control what she wore. He told her often no woman of mine is going to dress like a wh**e.’
Depp once said to Heard when she was going for an audition: ‘You’re going to go out with those tits and as**?’
Instead Heard had to put on ‘mom jeans’ so she didn’t look ‘revealing.’
Heard suffered a ‘barrage of accusations of infidelity’ including allegations from Depp. All of this had a ‘drastic’ effect on Heard and she lost roles because it was hard for her to audition.
Dr. Hughes said that while on a private plane ride from Boston to Los Angeles in 0214, Depp flew into a rage because Heard was filming with James Franco at the time.
She said: ‘She (Heard) gets on the plane, (Depp) starts talking about James Franco, making a lot of derogatory comments, hope you had fun with your escapades.
‘There was an argument when she got up to leave, he kicked her in the back and she went forward.’
Dr. Hughes said it was like ‘sucking the oxygen out of the room and before you know it you’re suffocating.’ Dr. Hughes said that many victims feel shame for the abuse which has a ‘compounding effect’ on them.
She said it was like a ‘vicious cycle of trying to figure out how can I be with this man who hurts me and yet I love him so much.’
Heard appeared to choke up as Dr. Hughes explained why women stay in violent relationships.
She said: ‘For the loving man, stay for the man who is kind, (the man she) had hoped and promised for their future. Some people stay because they have economic reasons, some people have children in common and don’t want to deprive their children of a father.
‘The most dangerous time for a woman is when she’s leaving – her likelihood of being killed increases substantially. Staying keeps her safe.’
Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft asked Dr. Hughes whether digital penetration of the vagina counted as abuse – such conduct has not been raised in the trial.
Dr. Hughes said yes if it was non consensual.
Bredehoft asked if the same applied to penetration by inanimate objects – that has also not been raised at the trial, but Heard’s lawyers claimed in their opening that Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle.
Heard looked on, stony-faced as Dr. Hughes said if there was no consent, it was abuse.
Depp’s lawyers have accused Heard of screaming at him during their rows but Dr. Hughes said that was a normal reaction to being victimized.
She said: ‘For women who feel they need to preserve their sense of autonomy they will yell and fight back.’
Women could ‘absolutely’ use violence in an abusive relationship but it was mostly for self defense or to ‘fight back.’
Dr. Hughes told the court she conducted a forensic evaluation of Heard involving examining documents in the case and testing and interviewing Heard herself for 22 hours in person and twice on Zoom.
In addition, Dr. Hughes spoke with Heard’s doctors and her late mother.
Dr. Hughes said that her conclusion was that Heard’s account was ‘consistent about what we know about Intimate Partner Violence.’
In Heard’s case her abuse was marked by: physical violence, psychological aggression, sexual violence, coercive control and ‘surveillance behaviors’, Dr. Hughes told the jury.
Dr. Hughes said that Heard demonstrated ‘very clearly traumatic effects’ from three statements made by Depp’s lawyers – which appeared to refer to claims by the Depp legal team that the case is a ‘hoax’.
Dr. Hughes said that she diagnosed Heard with PTSD and the cause was ‘intimate partner violence by Mr. Depp.’
This came after Heard’s lawyers made a last-ditch effort to have the case dismissed, only for the judge to deny their request.
Before starting their case, Amber Heard’s lawyers asked Judge Penney Azcarate to dismiss the case, saying Johnny Depp had not proven his claims.
Judge Azcarate denied the request regarding two statements in the Washington Post op-ed because there was a ‘scintilla’ of evidence a jury may find that they were defamatory.
The judge held off ruling on a third statement in the op-ed because the relevant evidence had not been brought in yet.
The request sparked angry exchanges in court with both sides strongly making their arguments.
Heard’s lawyer Benjamin Rotternborn said that if the court agrees that Depp abused Heard ‘even one time, she wins – it’s that simple.’ Rottenborn said that the evidence Depp abused Heard physically and verbally was ‘overwhelming and undisputed.’
As Rottenborn argued, the defamation claim should be stricken because Depp failed to establish ‘falsity of statement’ during his case in chief.
In a fiery response Depp’s lawyer Benjamin Chew said that Depp had ‘come forward with multiple credible witnesses, documents and authentic tape recordings of Miss Heard herself.’
The evidence satisfied all ‘requisite elements’ and even went the ‘extra mile of showing Miss Heard physically abused him.’
Raising his voice, Chew said: ‘She’s the abuser in this courtroom!’
Heard’s lawyer Rottenborn argued that if the case does move ahead, the headline of the op-ed should be stricken as Heard did not write it.
The headline on the online version reads: ‘I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.’
Rottenborn also claimed that Depp had failed to prove that Heard acted with ‘actual malice’ in writing the article, the test required for a defamation case.
Rottenborn told the court it was a ‘gatekeeper of the First Amendment’ and should dismiss the case.
Depp’s lawyer Chew said that the ‘most convincing and most disgusting’ evidence was from emails sent by the ACLU to the Washington Post pitching the idea of the piece.
In the email one ACLU executive told a Washington Post editor that it was written by Heard who ‘as you may recall was beaten up during her brief marriage to Johnny Depp.’
Chew claimed that the ACLU ‘helped her (Heard) to lie about it’ afterwards and called the civil rights group a ‘co-conspirator with Miss Heard’ that played a ‘frankly reprehensible role’ in the case.
The lawyer claimed that Heard told the ACLU to ‘put it back in, make it more spicy’, referring to an allusion to Depp
Without that the piece would have ended up in Teen Vogue as ‘no-one was interested in what she had to say unless she was defaming Mr. Depp’, Chew said.
Chew tore into Heard for failing to pay her $7million divorce settlement to the ACLU and the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles with half going to each.
Chew said that it was ‘one thing for her to stiff the ACLU’ but it was another to fail to pay the hospital with ‘sick and dying children’.
According to Chew ‘everybody and his grandmother’ knew that Heard was referring to her restraining order against Depp with the op-ed.
He called it ‘just a scam to get $7m from the divorce settlement’ that she ‘pocketed’ instead of giving it to charity as she pledged.’
Chew said, ‘Witness after witness has testified that Miss Heard, far from being a figure representing domestic violence, is in fact a recidivist perpetrator of domestic violence on Mr. Depp and others.’
In response Rottenborn said that Chew ‘wrote that speech for an audience outside the courtroom.’
Speaking of Heard, he said: ‘She’s not the abuser. She and her witnesses will put on even more evidence she suffered at the hands of Mr Depp.’