Australian prosecutors dropped a likely prison circumstance versus Aquaman” actress Amber Heard in excess of allegations that she lied to a court docket about how her Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo arrived to be smuggled into Australia eight years back, the government mentioned Wednesday.
Heard and her then-spouse Johnny Depp turned embroiled in a significant-profile biosecurity controversy in 2015 when she brought her animals to Australia’s Gold Coastline, where Depp was filming the fifth motion picture in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequence.
Australia’s Division of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, a biosecurity watchdog, stated the Commonwealth Director of General public Prosecutions resolved in opposition to prosecuting 37-12 months-old Read for allegedly feigning ignorance about the nation’s stringent quarantine restrictions.
“Prosecution motion will not be taken towards … Heard around allegations linked to her sentencing for the unlawful import of two canine,” the section mentioned in a statement.
The department experienced investigated discrepancies involving what her law firm told an Australian courtroom in 2016 — when she admitted smuggling the dogs — and testimony given in a London court in 2020 when Depp, now 60, was suing The Solar newspaper for libel above allegations of domestic violence from his former wife.
Read experienced pleaded responsible in 2016 at the Southport Magistrates Court in Australia to supplying a false immigration doc when the few introduced their puppies into Australia in a chartered jet a yr before.
Prosecutors dropped a lot more major rates that Heard illegally imported the dogs — a potential 10-calendar year jail sentence.
The fake documentation demand carried a most penalty of a yr in jail and a fantastic of far more than 10,000 Australian bucks ($7,650). Justice of the peace Bernadette Callaghan sentenced Read as a substitute to a a single-month very good conduct bond, underneath which she would only have to shell out a high-quality of AU$1,000 if she dedicated any offense in Australia above the next thirty day period.
Heard’s attorney, Jeremy Kirk, told the courtroom that his client never ever intended to lie on her incoming passenger card by failing to declare she experienced animals with her. In real truth, Kirk mentioned, she was basically jetlagged and assumed her assistants experienced sorted out the paperwork.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation demo is headed to the docuseries section of Netflix.
But a previous Depp employee, Kevin Murphy, informed London’s Large Court docket in 2020 that Heard had been repeatedly warned she was not permitted to convey canine to Australia. But she insisted, and later on pressured a personnel member to get the blame for breaking quarantine legislation.
The division advised the AP it collaborated with abroad organizations to investigate whether Heard experienced supplied false testimony about her expertise of Australia’s biosecurity regulations and regardless of whether an employee experienced falsified a statutory declaration below duress of dropping their occupation.
The division had furnished prosecutors with a short of evidence in opposition to Listened to, but no costs would be laid.
When the canine had been found in Could 2015 pursuing a trip from the couple’s rented Gold Coast mansion to a doggy grooming company, Depp and Read complied with a authorities-imposed 50-hour deadline to fly them again to the United States or have them euthanized.
Pistol and Boo turned Heard’s residence when the pair divorced in 2017.
