Amber Heard remains mired in legal troubles. According to Entertainment Tonight, the actress, 36, is still under investigation for an ongoing perjury case in Australia weeks after losing a $50 million lawsuit brought against her by her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
A spokesperson for the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water, and the Environment (DAWE) told Entertainment Tonight, “The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment [department] is investigating allegations of perjury by Ms. Heard during court proceedings for the 2015 illegal importation of [her] two dogs into Australia.” The spokesperson stated that the case is “ongoing.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
A video of Australian officials confirming they will investigate Amber Heard has also resurfaced on TikTok. A representative of DAWE told Newsweek in May that investigations were underway regarding allegations that Heard lied under oath about traveling with her pet dogs to Australia in May 2015.
In 2016, Heard, then married to Johnny Depp, was taken to court by the local authorities for bringing her two terriers, Pistol and Boo, to Australia without declaring them. The case ended with Heard avoiding conviction.
She was charged with making a false statement on her immigration card, where she checked “no” to the question of bringing anything into the country that should need to be declared. The video captures a Senate hearing of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, which occurred on Oct. 21, 2020, and confirmed an investigation was in progress.
The clip shows Peta Lane, who was then first assistant secretary of the Compliance Division, stating that her department is investigating Amber Heard. “There was a question this morning in relation to Amber Heard. I can confirm that the department is investigating that matter,” Lane says.”There was evidence presented in the London court case which suggested false statements were provided in the court case in Australia in 2016, so we are investigating that.”
According to court documents, the London case refers to Depp’s libel suit against British tabloid The Sun, which called the Pirates of the Caribbean actor a “wife-beater” after Heard alleged domestic abuse. The Kentucky native repeatedly denied hitting Heard during the three-week trial in London, but a court ruled that The Sun’s claims of abuse were “substantially true.”
The Australian Labor Party’s Senator Tony Sheldon addresses the timeline of the perjury investigation in the video before stating why the case was relevant to possible charges. Sheldon explains that Kevin Murphy, the former estate manager of Johnny Depp, testified that Heard was informed she could not take the dogs to Australia without the required permits, paperwork, and 10-day quarantine.”Murphy continued, ‘Ms. Heard later told the court in Australia that I had told her it was fine to bring the dogs into Australia. That is false, and I never told her this,’” Sheldon recounts.
In closing the clip, Lane said, “We understand that to be the evidence provided in the London court case. Giving false testimony is an offense under the Crimes Act, so that is what we are now investigating.” More than 400,000 people have viewed the TikTok video.
In 2016, Heard explained that there had been a misunderstanding since she presumed Depp’s assistants handled the entry of the terriers into the country, where the actor was filming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The Aquaman actress, who Depp accompanied, pleaded guilty in the Queensland hearing, but the magistrate gave her a $1,000 one-month bond without recording a conviction.
Heard was previously cleared from two charges for illegal importation, and she, alongside Depp, said they were “truly sorry” for the unlawful importation during a taped apology shown in court in 2016. Depp mocked the video while promoting the film Alice Through the Looking Glass.
In October 2021, DAWE told E! News that it sought to obtain witness statements, and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution would decide whether to pursue the matter once received. In 2021, Heard’s attorney told E! News of the investigation, “It is truly inconceivable, and we are confident it is not true, that either the Australian Government or the FBI, would embrace a policy of further pursuing and victimizing a person who has already been adjudicated to be the victim of domestic violence.”
Heard was involved in a six-week court battle with Depp in April over her 2018 The Washington Post op-ed, in which she claimed to have survived domestic abuse. Depp had sued her for defamation in response.
In a verdict handed down June 1, the jury found Heard’s claims false and defamatory and awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Virginia law limits punitive damages, so the judge adjusted the damages to $350,000. Despite countersuing for $100 million, Heard was awarded $2 million after Adam Waldman, Depp’s former lawyer, was found to have defamed her by making derogatory remarks.
