The story of Johnny Depp’s severed finger has flaws

Falls Church, Virginia – On Monday, the surgeon revealed that Johnny Depp could not lose the tip of his middle finger, as he told the jury that it happened in his civil lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

A finger injury that occurred in March 2015 during a fight in Australia between Depp and Hurd was one of several key contentious points in the lawsuit. Depp says he was injured when Hurd threw a bottle of vodka at him. Hurd said she had never seen it happen, but that it happened the night an enraged Depp sexually assaulted her with a bottle of alcohol.

Depp is suing Hurd for libel in Fairfax County Court for an article in December 2018 that she wrote in The Washington Post, describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic violence.” His lawyers say the article slandered him, although it never mentioned his name.

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Depp denies ever beating Hurd, and says she was an abuser in the relationship. Hurd testified about more than a dozen individual cases of physical violence, she said, she suffered at the hands of Depp.

In a testimony Monday, surgeon Richard Moore testified about a severed finger when jurors saw gruesome photos of the injury. He said Depp described that his palm was lying on the bar when he was hit by a bottle.

Moore, who did not treat Depp, testified that Depp’s description is unlikely, in large part because his nail remained intact. Moore said the nail was open as Depp described the location of his hand, and would have been damaged. Moore also said the rest of his arm had other cuts from the glass that shattered on impact.

While Depp told the jury that Hurd cut off his finger while throwing a bottle of vodka, at the time of the accident he told people and sent text messages saying he did it himself. At one point he said his finger was sandwiched between the hard door of the accordion.

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Now Depp says he lied to protect Hurd. Moore testified that pinching his finger in the accordion door would correspond to the injury.

The trial is in its sixth week. Evidence on Monday was relatively common in a lawsuit that gave an ugly look at the couple’s toxic relationship. Hurd’s lawyers were expected to summon Depp on Monday, but that didn’t happen.

The jury had heard a lot from both Depp and Hurd, each of whom had been on trial for four days, undergoing grueling cross-examination.

Also Monday, a psychiatrist testified that Depp’s behavior was in line with the model of a man whose drug and alcohol abuse contributes to domestic violence.

Depp’s lawyer questioned the ethics and credibility of the psychiatrist’s views, given that he had never conducted Depp’s examination.

The trial has attracted increasing public attention for its length. People camped at night and quarreled around seats in the queue, trying to get one of the 100 seats in the courtroom set aside for the public. During the morning break, one woman confessed to Depp’s love and asked if he was going to confess that he was the father of the child she was holding.

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She was removed from the courtroom.