Johnny Depp’s star lawyer Camille Vasquez celebrates verdict: ‘What we have said from the beginning’

Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez hugged her colleagues after winning the defamation trial against Amber Heard.

Speaking outside the courthouse in Virginia, Ms Vasquez celebrated the jury’s decision.

“Today’s verdict confirms what we have said from the beginning – that the claims against Johnny Depp are defamatory and unsupported by any evidence,” she said. “We are grateful, so grateful to the jury for their careful deliberation.”

Mr Depp won his case against Ms Heard as she was ordered to pay the actor $15m in damages.

But the jury also awarded Ms Heard $2m for one part of her own counterclaim, that Mr Depp’s lawyer had called her abuse allegations against her ex-husband a hoax.

The jury of five men and two women returned its verdict on Wednesday after nearly 13 hours of deliberation spread over three days at the district court in Fairfax, Virginia.

But the reading of the verdict was dramatically delayed as the judge had to send the jury back out because they had failed to fill out the damages section of the form.

Mr Depp was not in court for the verdict. He is working in the UK and was spotted in a pub in Newcastle. Ms Heard was present for the reading of the verdict.

Fans of Mr Depp cheered wildly outside the courthouse as each verdict was returned by the jury.

Ms Vasquez has become one of the best-known figures among followers of the case. Mr Depp’s fans have given her the online attention usually reserved for actors and singers.

There have been celebratory tweets and Instagram fan accounts. Depp supporters have been known to wait outside the courthouse, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ms Vasquez and possibly get their own hug.

After Ms Vasquez’s cross-examination of Ms Heard, a meme reimagined the attorney as Thor, the god of thunder portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in Marvel movies.

During the Depp v Heard case, Ms Vasquez first gained prominence as a frequent objector during testimony, especially when Mr Depp and Ms Heard themselves took the stand.

The cross-examination of Ms Heard, which took place between 16 and 17 May, brought her further into the online limelight. Google Trends, a tool made available by Google to measure the popularity of various search terms over time, shows that search interest for the words “Camille Vasquez” surged from 16 to 18 May.

Google Trends uses an index in which 100 indicates peak popularity for a search term, and 0 means there wasn’t enough data to analyse. Search interest for the query “Camille Vasquez” jumped from one to 28 between 15 and 16 May, then further climbed to 59 on 17 May and 100 on 18 May.

Following the verdict, Ms Heard released a statement that she was “heartbroken.”

“The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband,” she said.

“I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously.”

And she added that the result was an attack on Freedom of Speech.

“I’m sad I lost this case. But I am sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American – to speak freely and openly.”